A Qualitative Exploration of Parent and School Staff Perceptions of Freshly Prepared Meals and Food Waste Implications in California Elementary Schools.

Objective: Explore parent and school staff perceptions of freshly prepared school lunches.

Design: Cross-sectional qualitative study, occurring May through June, 2024.

Setting: Urban California elementary schools that recently introduced freshly prepared lunches.

Participants: Parents (n = 23) participated in 5 virtual focus groups, convenience sampled; school staff (n = 19) participated in interviews, purposively sampled.

Phenomenon of interest: Perceptions of scratch cooking.

Analysis: Verbatim transcripts were coded and analyzed using the framework method.

Results: Participants believed the freshly prepared meals transition was successful, citing new menu items, helpful foodservice staff, and universal school meals as beneficial. Freshly prepared meals were positively perceived as creating healthier options and increasing the cultural diversity of the menu. Participants were concerned about food waste implications, and identified reasons including requirements to serve all entree components and large serving sizes, limited lunch time, students changing their minds on lunch order, foods not cooked properly or served at the right temperature, and menu criticism.

Conclusions and implications: Parents and school staff broadly endorse more freshly prepared school lunch options. Our findings support investment in on-site kitchen infrastructure and training for foodservice staff in scratch-cooking techniques to support elementary schools in providing more desirable, fresh foods and reducing waste from school lunch.