The public school system has launched a program to feature a locally grown food in every school cafeteria at least once a month, beginning in December with local ground beef.

The state departments of Education and Agriculture introduced the new ‘Aina Pono Hawaii Harvest of the Month program Friday at Kalani High School.

“Public school cafeterias serve 100,000 students a day — I like to say it’s the largest restaurant chain in the state,” said Albert Scales, administrator for the DOE’s School Food Services Branch.

That meant ordering 18,000 pounds of meat from local beef producers.

The beef was readily available, said Dale Sandlin, managing director of the Hawaii Cattlemen’s Council, which represents all the ranchers in the state, although operators had to adjust their processing schedules to accommodate the schools along with their regular clients.

Both Scales and Sandlin are optimistic that local beef will become part of a normal school menu cycle, served monthly. Buying local rather than mainland beef costs $7,000 statewide for the monthly program, but the difference is mitigated by menu development, food preparation and waste reduction, Scales said.

This month’s ground beef is turned into teri hamburger steak at elementary and middle schools and a loco moco at high schools. The hamburger recipe was adapted from a USDA version by Curtis Haida, a former school cafeteria manager and a supervisor of the School Food Services Branch, and Brenda Nagasawa, Kalani’s cafeteria manager. They added ginger, garlic, mushroom and soy sauce to the recipe for a more local, more flavorful dish.

Kalani sophomore Tyler Martinez, 15, enjoyed the lunch, saying, “It’s a lot better than the usual hamburger. It has a better taste; it’s not as bland.”

Ryder Tanaka, 17, a Kalani senior, agreed. Not only was the flavor better and the patty heartier, “at least we know where the food is coming from,” he said. “The regular beef from the mainland probably has more preservatives.”

The local product next month is banana, with 35,000 to 40,000 pounds to be used in a dessert, possibly a banana crisp or double-crusted banana pie, Haida said.

The move toward regular local food has multiple benefits, Scales said.

“It’s healthier for kids to eat local beef — it’s grass-fed, we know the source, and it has no antibiotics or hormones. And as we purchase more local, we hope that the agriculture industry will grow. For years we’ve been saying the industry is dying, but one of the goals is to help grow agriculture, since we buy in such large quantities.

“We’re taking school food back to its roots. If anyone remembers lunches from decades ago, much of it was locally sourced,” Scales said. “Many kids now are familiar with processed food. The hope is that when students develop a palate for (food cooked from scratch), they will shop for it.”