Daniel Giusti, a Michelin-starred chef, knows a thing or two about lunch.
For the last three years, he dished out $300 lunches to the elite at Noma, a Copenhagen restaurant consistently deemed one of the "world's best."
But now he's leaving the fine dining world to feed schoolchildren for $3.07 each — the amount the US Department of Agriculture reimburses schools for free lunches.
For the past three months, he has traveled to 15 public school districts across the US as research for his new start-up. Called Brigaid, the startup's goal is to put a chef in every school kitchen and redesign the school lunch.
"This is a problem that people have been trying to solve for decades," he tells Tech Insider. "The truth is that everything can be better."
Giusti has learned a lot about how schools can make lunches more appetizing, which can dramatically reduce how much food kids throw out.
Here are four ideas he wants to bring to schools with Brigaid, launching this fall.
Hire chefs to cook in school kitchens full-time.
From the start, Giusti, 31, knew Brigaid would be a challenge in schools, especially ones that have small budgets, long-term contracts with food providers, and strict nutritional guidelines. Putting chefs in school kitchens seems like an impossible task.
But if anyone could figure out how to finance a redesigned school lunch, it would be chefs, since they are natural problem-solvers, Giusti says.
"You need to be prepared to move and be dynamic." he says. "Chefs are trained to get a lot of food out in a timely manner with little money in high-pressure environments. It doesn't take a chef from Noma to do that — any chef can do that."
Improve the lunchtime experience.
Last month, #ThanksMichelleObama made the rounds, as a joking response to her efforts to make school lunches more nutritious. Teens tweeted and Instagrammed photos and videos of gross school lunches, which are designed to comply with the new USDA guidelines championed by the First Lady. Below is one such photo:
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Design a structured workflow in school kitchens.
Giusti noticed that many school kitchens don't have an organized workflow.
"There would be six people in a kitchen, and they would either be doing nothing or all over the place," he says.
Giusti believes kitchens could benefit from having structured chains of command, similar to restaurant kitchens.
"Some schools have kitchens 10 times larger than they need to be, and when you go into them, nothing much is happening," he says. "It doesn't smell like food — it doesn't really smell like anything, because everything is just gradually heated up."
Brigaid's workflow plans will be different for virtually every school district, depending on size and where food comes from. The Brigaid team will design a plan for a small east coast district for the fall.
Offer nutritious meals with fewer than five food groups.
Nationally, school lunches have to include five components: a protein, starch, vegetable, fruit, and a milk. Here's an example:
—MNPS Chef Rebecca (@MNPSChefRebecca) November 22, 2014
The good news: there are plenty of schools already serving delicious meals, like Johnson High School in St. Paul, Minnesota. "These folks are doing it right out here!" Giusti wrote on Instagram. "Notice a little Sriracha action on that chicken!"
