NDDPI, Culinary Students Cooking Up Nutritional Partnership

BISMARCK, N.D., Aug. 26, 2025 – State Superintendent Kirsten Baesler said a partnership between the Department of Public Instruction and the culinary arts program at the state College of Science in Wahpeton will provide school cooks with new instruction about preparing innovative school meals with less sodium and sugar.

After receiving instruction on Wednesday from department nutrition experts and a culinary consultant, the College of Science students will train school cooks from across North and South Dakota on how to comply with regulatory changes in federal school lunch and breakfast programs. The training sessions will be held in October, November, and the spring of 2026.

The partnership will provide school cooks with new recipes and food preparation methods and bolster the students’ nutritional knowledge. Lynelle Johnson, director of the Department of Public Instruction’s child nutrition unit, said she hoped the program would prompt the culinary students to consider careers in school food service.

Among the foods to be prepared at the training sessions are banana bread, cinnamon rolls, reduced-sodium chili, granola, yogurt parfaits, and wojapi-inspired fruit sauce. Wojapi is a Native American berry sauce.

“We’re hoping to show that school nutrition is a good career opportunity,” said Amy Nelson, a Department of Public Instruction child nutrition specialist. 

Benjamin Whitmore, an associate professor at the North Dakota State College of Science and coordinator of its culinary arts program, said about 25 students will participate in the partnership.

The culinary students are preparing for industry jobs, such as restaurant management and executive chef positions, where they would be responsible for training others, he said. Efforts to reduce sugar and sodium are also part of the students’ nutrition instruction.

“This is a new project, and a great partnership for us,” Whitmore said. “These are things we are teaching anyway."

Whitmore said the appeal of jobs in school kitchens, hospitals, nursing homes, and other institutional settings has increased in recent years. Many culinary students have focused on higher-profile restaurant jobs, which offer better pay coupled with longer hours and more intense, stressful working conditions.

“You’re not working every night, every weekend” in an institutional job, Whitmore said. “They like the hours. They like the steadiness. Those jobs are starting to pay better, too. And there is even more demand for healthy cuisine in the school, the hospital, the nursing home, any kind of health-care setting. It really is a win-win.” 

Nelson said the program is being administered by NDDPI and financed by a U.S. Department of Agriculture Team Nutrition grant of $759,474.

The training will be available to school cooks in October at the College of Science’s Wahpeton campus, and in November at United Tribes Technical College in Bismarck. Additional training sessions will be available in North and South Dakota in the spring of 2026.

Culinary training sessions will also be held during the 2026-27 school year that will provide recipes and instruction for school nutrition professionals about ways to reduce sodium in school meals.