Come for lunch in one of the Osborn school district’s cafeterias, and you’re likely to find something on the plate grown or raised locally in Arizona—crisp red apples, yellow watermelon, native squash, or beef from a nearby ranch.
Farm-to-school cooking has been a priority for Cory Alexander, the district’s director of child nutrition. It supports local business and brings fresher food into cafeterias, he said. “It’s easier, then, to create something that tastes good and is nutritious.”
Alexander, a 2026 Leader To Learn From honoree, has expanded scratch-cooking across Osborn’s school cafeterias, worked to professionalize school food-service roles, and implemented new nutrition education programs for students and families.
One of his “passion projects,” he said, has been partnering with more local food distributors. The most expansive of these partnerships has been with K4 Ranches in Prescott, Ariz., a beef distributor about 100 miles north of the Phoenix school district. K4 now supplies all of Osborn’s ground beef, beef strips, and hot dogs.
The district initially offset the higher cost of locally produced beef using dollars from Arizona’s Try it Local program, funded through the federal Local Food for Schools Program. But the U.S. Department of Agriculture cut the federal grant program in March.
Alexander spoke with Education Week about how he developed the partnership, how districts can overcome logistical hurdles in farm-to-school operations, and how he plans to keep buying local without federal grant support.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
What motivated you to seek out partnerships with local suppliers?
One of the things I really like about what I do is that our program is federally funded. When we turn in our claim, how many meals we’ve served, to the Department of Education, the money that we receive for those meals comes from the [Department of Agriculture]. It’s federal dollars.
If I can keep those federal dollars in Arizona, in our community, that not only supports [the district] but also our community members, right? That’s one piece of it: How do we keep those federal dollars here and help our community out?
The other piece is—I’ll give you an example. When I call our [wholesale] distributor, I say, “Hey, do you know where your beef comes from?” They’re like, “Nope, it could come from anywhere.” The longer that something sits on a truck in transit, it’s not as fresh. And fresh food just tastes better. My cooks, my managers, everybody in the kitchen opens a package [of local beef] and goes, “Whoa, it’s a different color. Oh, it tastes a lot better.”
How did you find K4 Ranches and decide it was the right fit for a partnership with Osborn?
Originally, there was a grant through the [U.S.] Department of Education that allowed us to purchase local foods and get reimbursed. One of the things that is difficult about local food is that it is costly. I felt like [the grant] was my opportunity to really try to figure this out.
I was like, OK, there’s a beef association website. I can get on there, and I can see who’s on there, who’s supplying beef, who are local ranchers. I’m on Google. I’m literally DM’ing ranchers through our Instagram. It was fun! It was cool, but, man, it was definitely a labor of love.
I finally found one person and then I had to vet him even further to say, “Because we are receiving federal dollars, do you process your beef in a USDA-inspected facility?” Then I had to start looking at the processors to see who was USDA-inspected, who wasn’t. I kept on asking people, “Hey, where do you get your beef from? Do you know any ranchers who are selling ground beef?” Through word of mouth, I heard about K4.
We started having conversations about cost, about the sustainability of providing beef to a school district. We do require a lot, whereas a small rancher, they could give us a one-time [delivery, and then say,] “I don’t have any more ready and I have to talk to the processor.” Then the processor is backed up, and I’m like, “I have a six-week cycle and I need it in a timely manner. I need it packaged a certain way.” There’s a lot of logistical things. Ryan [Person, K4’s production manager] was able to help figure that out and also meet us where we needed to be in terms of cost.
Why is cost a barrier for local partnerships?
When you’re buying local beef, some of the ranchers, they can’t sell it to you at a sustainable price. That was another conversation that I was trying to have with the ranchers to say, “I want to support you, but I also don’t know if I’ll be able to do it again [without federal grant funding] unless we can talk about price.” But they’re also running a business, they have to buy feed and hay, and they have to pay for their land.
Ryan, his price will fluctuate. But with our [wholesale] distributor, their price fluctuates, too, if they’re not on a bid. The beef that I was buying from our [wholesale] distributor, that’s what I base the cost off for Ryan, and said, “If you can match this price or beat it, you’ll get our business and probably even more business [from other districts].” He’s like, “Listen, I can get close. And the more business we’re doing with schools, I can even lower that price a little bit.”
Is this ongoing partnership model one that Osborn uses to supply other ingredients?
When it comes to produce, fruits and vegetables, that’s a whole different world. I’m trying to re-create that. There are co-ops that I’m trying to work with. Carrots, for example—we use so many vegetables. So many carrots go through Osborn schools.
We’ve tried that before, where we have planned with a farmer, “Hey, I need X amount of carrots on this date. Will you plant me a crop?” And they do, but javelinas get in the crop, or something goes wrong with the weather, and now their vegetables don’t grow. There seems to be more logistical challenges with fresh fruits and vegetables than there have been with beef.
I’m sitting down with some other school leaders and people who are in the business of distribution and working with co-ops, to try to figure out how can we source locally during the Arizona growing season? That is definitely something that we’re doing; it just has not been successful at this point yet to the same degree [as the beef partnership].
We just got these amazing red apples from an orchard in Prescott, and they’re awesome, but it’s kind of a one-time deal. We’ll do it again but maybe not year-round.
