Renegade Lunch Lady; Partner, Lunch Lessons, LLC; Interim Nutrition Director, Boulder Valley School District; and Founder, Food Family Farming Foundation’s Lunch Box Project

Chef Ann Cooper is a celebrated author, chef, educator, and enduring advocate for better food for all children. In a nation where children are born with shorter estimated life expectancies than their parents because of diet-related illness, Ann is a relentless voice of reform by focusing on the links between food, family, farming and children’s health and wellness.

A graduate of the Culinary Institute of America, Hyde Park, NY, Ann has been a chef for more than 30 years including positions with Holland America Cruises, Radisson Hotels, Telluride Ski Resort as well as serving as Executive Chef at the renowned Putney Inn in Vermont. She has been featured in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Chicago Tribune, Newsweek, and Time Magazine and has appeared on NPR’s ‘Living on Earth,’ ABC’s Nightline, CNN, PBS’ To the Contrary, CBS Morning Show and many other media outlets. Ann has shared her knowledge and experience by speaking at the Smithsonian Institute, the National Restaurant Association, the Heifer Foundation, Chefs Collaborative, the International Association of Culinary Professionals and numerous conferences. She has been honored by SLOW Food USA, selected as a Kellogg Food and Society Policy Fellow, and awarded an honorary doctorate from SUNY Cobleskill for her work on sustainable agriculture.

Ann is the author of four books: Lunch Lessons: Changing the Way We Feed Our Children (2006), In Mother’s Kitchen: Celebrated Women Chefs Share Beloved Family Recipes (2005), Bitter Harvest: A Chef’s Perspective on the Hidden Dangers in the Foods We Eat and What You Can do About It (2000) and A Woman’s Place is in the Kitchen: The Evolution of Women Chefs (1998). She is past president of The American Culinary Federation of Central Vermont, and past president and board member of Women's Chefs and Restaurateurs. She also served on the U.S. Department of Agriculture National Organic Standards Board, a Congressional appointment, and was an Executive Committee member of Chefs Collaborative - all in an effort to raise awareness about the value of healthful, seasonal, organic, and regional foods.

Ann’s research for and writing of A Bitter Harvest provided a true epiphany for this always curious and proactive chef. No longer could the environmental and health facts be ignored when it came to producing food in this country. Ms Cooper’s career shifted from primarily cooking to a path of cooking, writing, and public speaking – all advocacy work for a healthier food system. There is no doubt that Ann is an accomplished chef, however her focus is now on using her skills and background to create a sustainable model for schools nationwide to transition any processed food based K-12 school meal program to a whole foods environment where food is procured regionally and prepared from scratch. In 2009, Ann founded Food Family Farming Foundation (F3) as a nonprofit focusing on solutions to the school food crisis. F3's pivotal project is The Lunch Box- a web portal that provides free and accessible tools, recipes and community connections to support school food reform.

Chef Ann is happily doing the work of three as a Chef, Nutrition Services Director, Consultant, Author, Public Speaker, and Advocate because she sees a need for change and has the gifts to help. She envisions a time soon when being a chef working to feed children fresh, delicious, and nourishing food will no longer be considered “renegade.”

The Lunch Box Lead

Beth Collins has been cooking up change in kitchens, including school kitchens, for more than 15 years. She is a partner in Lunch Lessons LLC (http://lunchlessonsllc.com), with Ann Cooper. Beth also owns Local Plates LLC, a consulting business based in Traverse City, Mich., which offers food service solutions ranging from assessments to technical and tactical implementation of changes that result in healthier school food. Currently, Chef Beth works with the Boulder Valley School District in Boulder, Colo. to implement its School Food Project, a local public-private initiative that resulted after Lunch Lessons, LLC, performed a Nutrition Services Feasibility Study for the district in 2008. Beth's other recent client engagements include: assessments of the Santa Cruz City School District and the Westminster Community Charter School in Buffalo, N.Y., technical assistance in procurement operations for the Berkeley Unified School District, workshop training for food service staff with the Orfalea Fund's S'cool Food Project, and a complete systemic overhaul of the Grand Traverse Area Catholic Schools in Traverse City, shifting it from a contract reheat food service to a self operated scratch cooking based lunch program.

Chef Beth's experience in school food reform was catalyzed in 2000 with a move to East Hampton, N.Y. where she joined the culinary team at the Ross School. Beth worked at Ross School for six years establishing the local procurement and food processing system as her primary work within the management team. She became Executive Chef in 2004 and continued to refine the whole foods system model before moving on to consulting in 2006. Beth trained at Peter Kump’s Cooking School (now I.C.E.) in 1995 and worked in New York City with several culinary mentors including chefs Fortunato Nicotra, Lidia Bastianich and Michel Nischan.

Chef Beth is one of the original visionaries for The Lunch Box Project, having overseen the first round of 80 scalable, fully tested recipes (at both sea level and high altitude) and will in the future be charged with ensuring The Lunch Box is fully functional and accessible for all renegades.

Executive Director, F3: Food Family Farming Foundation

Nicole de Beaufort is founder and president of Fourth Sector Consulting, Inc. (http://fourthsectorconsulting.com) which provides strategic services that build collaborative multi-sector efforts for the benefit of the social good. Her expertise is in food policy related initiatives, especially those that directly impact and improve the health of children. As part-time executive director, Nicole oversees both the “big picture” and the fine details of F3, and directs the building of The Lunch Box Project. Nicole has more than a dozen years of philanthropic and food systems experience. Nicole first met and worked with Chef Ann during Ann’s Food and Society fellowship (http://foodandsocietyfellows.org). Nicole holds a degree from Williams College in Anthropology. When not running a business or F3, she is learning about the latest social media or technology innovation or seeking out farmers markets in every city she visits.

Program Coordinator, F3: Food Family Farming Foundation

Barbara trained to be a chef at The Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N,Y., and before coming to F3, she was a line cook at The Green Zebra in Chicago, Ill. During culinary school Barbara learned first-hand about changing food in schools working under Chef Ann Cooper as a Nutrition Consultant for the Chez Panisse Foundation in the Berkeley Unified School District in Calif. Prior to cooking professionally, Barbara worked for organic vegetable farms. She also traveled the world, volunteering on farms to learn about local cuisines outside of the U.S. She earned a degree in Sociology/Organizational Studies from The University of Calif., Davis in 2002. Barbara believes deeply that fresh, nourishing food and knowledge about how to prepare it should be accessible to everyone and through that, the health of our communities and our environment will improve.

Contributing Writer, The Lunch Box blog

Deborah Lehmann is studying economics and public policy at Brown University, where she was recently awarded a Royce Fellowship. In addition to writing The Lunch Box's daily blog, Debbie writes for the Brown Daily Herald, covering campus news and trends in higher education. A native of the San Francisco Bay Area, she enjoys cooking with fresh, seasonal produce from her local farmers market.