Panorama Organic Partners with Sacramento City School District’s Central Kitchen Food Truck at Farm to Fork Festival
The plate was a big hit at the Sacramento Farm to Fork Festival.
When Sacramento City School District debuted its new food truck at the Sacramento Farm to Fork Festival in September, everything on the menu came from local farms, including the meat, sourced from Panorama Organic. Executive Chef Tom Lucero created a birria taco plate with organic, grass-fed beef topped with fresh-shucked roasted corn salsa, pickled red onions, cotija crumbles, and a creamy jalapeno aioli, served with a cup of chilled chamoy fruit.
According to Mark Luna, West Coast sales manager for Panorama Organic, the tacos were a big hit. “It was the talk of the festival everywhere I went,” he says. “All I heard was, ‘where did you get those tacos? Where can I get those tacos? Oh, have you tried those tacos? They’re excellent.’” The truck sold around 2,000 tacos during the festival, and proceeds will fund field trips for students to Floyd Farms, the district’s urban farm and cooking school on the campus of Leataata Floyd Elementary in downtown Sacramento.
The food truck is a part of the district’s new Central Kitchen, which will prepare fresh breakfast and lunch to be distributed via the truck to 80 schools. The menu items will be prepared from scratch using as many local ingredients as possible in the hope that school kids will learn to appreciate new flavors and enjoy at least one healthy meal every day. All school meals are served free of charge to all students, thanks to California SB 364.
Lucero’s connection to Panorama Organic came via Chef Santana Diaz, executive chef at UC Davis Health, a big proponent of grass-fed, organic beef and long-time Panorama Organic customer since his days at the Golden One Center, home of the Sacramento Kings. Luna says Lucero appreciated the quality of the chuck for the tacos, and once the Central Kitchen is up and running, there’s the potential for Panorama Organic products to be a part of the regular menus at the district.
In the meantime, thousands of Sacramento’s citizens got to experience the deliciousness of organic, grass-fed beef. “There were lots of smiling faces there,” says Luna. “That was nice to see.”
