WAYNE HIGHLANDS SCHOOL DISTRICT — How does food make its way from the farm onto a student’s lunch tray? In some cases, that story is more interesting than you might think. 

Take the House-Made Smash Burger, served at the burger bar in the Wayne Highlands High School cafeteria. 

The burger is “one of the most sought-after options of the week,” according to Ryne Spaulding, the food service director with Wayne Highlands. “Beyond the excitement it brings to our menu, the smash burger represents our commitment to offering meals that are not only nutritious but also locally sourced and delicious.”

But it isn’t the school district alone that gets the burger into students’ waiting hands. It’s a partnership between Wayne Highlands and the Pennsylvania Beef Council (PA Beef Council). 

The PA Beef Council is an organization representing nearly 18,500 beef, dairy and veal producers across the commonwealth, according to its website. Its mission? “To work on behalf of farmers, building beef and veal demand with consumers of all ages.”

The council carries out that mission in a number of ways. One of those is the PA Beef to PA Schools program, which connects local farmers and beef producers to school lunchrooms and subsidizes the beef that those schools receive. 

Now in its third year, the program includes 117 school districts across the commonwealth and supplies 217,000 students with over 132,000 pounds of beef in a year. 

Wayne Highlands is one of those 117 school districts participating in the program. According to Spaulding, the school has been awarded 100 pounds of beef a month, for a total of 900 pounds in the 2024-25 school year. The PA Beef Council picks up half the cost of the beef, bringing the school’s investment down to just $2.33 per pound. 

“This fantastic value allows us to stretch our budget while serving top-quality protein to our students,” Spaulding said. 

The beef Wayne Highlands gets from the program comes from Happy Valley Meat Company, an organization that collects meat from farms across Pennsylvania and aggregates it in Lancaster for the PA Beef to PA Schools program. 

The company has “a mission to create a local food system that works,” according to its website. Its farmers are younger than the national average and are focused on the welfare of their animals, with small herds raised on a mix of pasture, grain and hay feeding. 

The PA Beef to PA Schools program benefits its participants at every stage of the journey, from farm to cafeteria table. 

Small farms get an avenue to bring their beef to market through aggregators like Happy Valley Meat Company. The PA Beef Council gets to further the beef agenda, strengthening the market for beef now and in the future. 

“Our desire is to provide more beef, more often in schools, which offers sound nutrition and a great eating experience, and ultimately [to] grow the next generation of beef consumers,” says Nichole Hockenberg, executive director of PA Beef Council. 

For its part, Wayne Highlands gets a cut-rate source of high-quality food for its students, as well as an opportunity to teach them an appreciation for local agriculture. 

“We believe that integrating locally grown food into our school lunchrooms not only supports our students’ health and well-being, but also teaches them about the importance of supporting local agriculture,” says Spaulding. “It creates a valuable connection between the farm and the cafeteria, encouraging a deeper appreciation for the food they eat and the people who produce it.”

As for the students? Well, they get regular access to tasty burgers—so, in some ways, they’re the real winners out of this whole thing.