CLEARFIELD—Kids are back in school and along with that comes school lunch. More than 27,000 lunches and close to 5,000 breakfasts are served each day in 93 schools in the Davis School District. Those meals are coming out of the Cook and Chill Central Facility in Clearfield.

Muffins, meat, soup and the kids’ favorite, Mac n’ Cheese are made there then delivered to all of the schools and they all serve the same thing.

“It’s unique in the fact that we have this facility that prepares all of the lunches for all 93 schools in the district,” said District Administrator, Craig Carter. “It was built in 1997 and opened in 1998.”

It’s one of only two centralized centers in the state, said DeeDee Galbraith, production facility coordinator. “We provide food to the Salt Lake School District, Park City, Box Elder and many charter schools.” 

The food is USDA inspected daily, she said. “We maintain the highest standard of cleanliness. We have samples that go to the lab quarterly to check for any pathogens.”

Menus are planned out a year in advance, said Galbraith. “We start in September and we’ll be working on the 2025-26 menu. It’s a group effort with the kitchen manager, director, data tech leads in the facility, etc. who can tell us if it can or can’t be made.”

There’s also some taste testing with the kids, she said. “We have a poll chart that they can put a happy face, sad face or neural face on when they eat. It helps us gauge if the students like the product to determine what works and doesn’t work.”

Mac n’ Cheese is their favorite, Galbraith said. “We also bring in orange chicken and chicken nuggets.”

Muffins are huge, she said. “We make lots of muffins, dinner rolls, ciabatta rolls and frozen cookie dough. We have four rotations of cookies.”

They also cook chili and sloppy joes, said Galbraith. “We make Jello and our own ranch dressing. We also make pot pie, chicken soup, tomato soup and we’re trying out tuscan soup. Cinnamon rolls are also a big one.”

The facility has a 300 gallon kettle that takes the product to a critical control point at a certain temperature then it’s bagged hot and goes right from bagging into the tumble chiller and it’s cooled immediately there. 

There’s also a 300 gallon mixer for making cinnamon rolls then the dough is rolled and cut by hand, Galbraith said. “There are four Revent ovens with racks that can accommodate 30 pounds of product. There is also a packaging machine that packages 90 muffins at a time into a crate.”

Schools also get some pre-made food from distributors but nothing is made at the school, she said. “Distributors deliver fresh produce to the schools.”

Cafe Central & Davis Catering is another unique part of the facility. Anyone can eat there. “They serve breakfast and lunch from 7 a.m. – 10 a.m. and 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.,” said Galbraith. “You can come in and buy any of the products through the cafe at the register or online.”

They cater within the building (no outside catering) and make food for a lot of weddings, she said. “We make a lot of peanut butter bars and brownies.” 

Galbraith said parents don’t need to worry about their children receiving a nutritious meal. “We use all fresh fruits and vegetables every day. Nothing is processed. There are no preservatives in our bread products, we make it all from scratch. We follow all of the USDA requirements for sugar and salt.”

The public is welcome to come and take a tour, she said. “Come and see the process.”