Report 26-08 Audit of the Department of Education’s Efforts to Meet Its Mandate to Incorporate Local Foods in School Meals

In 2021, the Legislature transferred the Farm to School Program from the Department of Agriculture to the Department of Education (DOE), created a Farm to School Coordinator position, and set a clear target: By January 1, 2025, 10 percent of the total cost of school meals was to come from locally sourced products. By 2030, that number is required to reach 30 percent.DOE had three school years to meet the 10 percent benchmark.It did not.For School Year 2023–2024 — the year tied to the January 1, 2025 deadline — DOE reported that just 5.4 percent of its $82 million in food spending was on locally sourced products We initiated this audit to determine why DOE did not meet the 10 percent mandate and how the department intends to meet the 30 percent requirement by 2030.  We found that neither the Farm to School Program nor the mandate to increase the use of local products was treated as a department priority.  The program lacked a strategic plan, written policies and procedures, and reliable data systems to track and verify local food purchases. Cafeteria Managers — who are responsible for ordering food — were not consistently informed of specific targets, and most product lists did not distinguish between local and imported items, limiting their ability to purchase local products intentionally.We also found that DOE’s data on locally sourced purchases was unverified and, at times, inconsistent. The department relied on distributor-reported data and lacked a centralized system capable of accurately tracking local purchases across schools.In Summer 2025, DOE released a plan centered on building regional kitchens as a pathway to reaching 30 percent locally sourced food by 2030. While centralized kitchens may create opportunities to incorporate more local ingredients, the plan lacks key baseline data, cost analyses, and concrete projections demonstrating how those facilities will result in increased local procurement Without a deliberate strategy, reliable data, and coordinated execution, DOE’s spending on local food has remained largely static — reflecting business as usual rather than a sustained effort to meet the Legislature’s mandate.Learn how:DOE lacked a structured plan and reliable systems to track and increase locally sourced food purchases.Cafeteria purchasing practices and procurement processes limited the department’s ability to prioritize local products.DOE’s proposed regional kitchen strategy may not, on its own, ensure that the 30 percent mandate is met by 2030.Without sufficient baseline data on what local products are available, in what quantities, during which seasons, and at what cost, the 30 percent mandate risks becoming not only another unmet benchmark, but a costly one.Read the full report here:https://files.hawaii.gov/auditor/Reports/2026/26-08.pdfReport summary:https://files.hawaii.gov/auditor/Overviews/2026/26-08AuditorSummary.pdfThanks for listening. You can find this and other reports at: auditor.hawaii.gov