Columbus Cafeterias Return to Cooking From Scratch

A number of Columbus school cafeterias are returning to scratch cooking, replacing the processed, heat-and-serve meals that came to dominate school food with dishes prepared from raw ingredients. The shift promises fresher, healthier meals — and demands more of school kitchens than reheating ever did.

Cooking from scratch requires equipment, training, and staff time that many schools shed over decades of outsourcing to processed convenience. Rebuilding that capacity is the real work behind a deceptively simple-sounding idea.

Advocates say the payoff shows up in what students actually eat, and in a cafeteria that smells like a kitchen rather than a factory. Scaling it within tight budgets, they acknowledge, remains the hard part.