School food-service chefs prove USDA-compliant scratch cooking is possible today, at scale, with standard school kitchen equipment

INDIANAPOLIS, Oct. 26, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — MAHA Center, the 501(c)(3) arm of the Make America Healthy Again movement, sponsored the MAHA School Food Showdown at the 2026 World Food Championships (WFC) this past weekend. They were joined by officials from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), state agriculture leaders, and food, agriculture and healthcare executives for a day of VIP Food Policy Roundtables at the Indiana State Fairgrounds.

The four-day championship, held October 15–18 at the Indiana Farm Bureau Fall Creek Pavilion, closed Sunday evening with remarks by Calley Means, Senior Advisor for Healthcare and Nutritional Policy at HHS. The weekend brought MAHA Center’s strategy to life with chefs preparing delectable and nutritious lunchroom meals with real food on a school meal budget.

The MAHA School Food Showdown

On Saturday, five chefs from Taher Inc., a school food-service company that feeds students across the United States, competed in the MAHA School Food Showdown with student sous chefs at their side and a live crowd watching. The final round gave each team sixty minutes and an identical basket: protein, whole grain, vegetables, whole fruit and milk. Every tray had to be cooked from scratch, meet USDA school-meal standards, and deliver a plan for batching it for 100 students utilizing typical school kitchen equipment.

Taher, Inc. is a contract food service management company providing K-12 school lunch management, campus dining, senior dining, business dining and catering, summer camp dining, and vending and office coffee services to clients in our growing nationwide footprint. Since its founding in 1981 by President and CEO Bruce Taher, the company has focused on serving fresh foods expertly prepared by a team of chefs, monitored by a group of seasoned veterans, and delivered at a reasonable price.Taher serves over 34 million meals per year, and employs and/or supervises more than 3,000 employees. Supporting each of Taher’s field sites is a regional staff of dietitians, merchandising and creative design professionals, purchasing personnel, and specialists in information technology, facility design, and operations.

The winning dish was a plate of nachos built on real chicken, black beans and a vegetable medley presented by Chef John Sugimura, one of Taher’s masterchefs. He is known for the ultimate expression of flavors, colors, and cooking methods, coming together in an authentic experience that is one-of-a-kind. He travels the country cooking for our public school children.

There are 45 million school meals served each day and roughly 70 percent of school lunches are classified as ultra-processed. The Showdown was designed to answer a simple question: can a school kitchen serve real food under today’s rules and today’s reimbursement rates? The chefs answered yes.

Two powerful messages emerged from the weekend. First, the food service industry can be a powerful partner in improving school meals, not an obstacle to progress. Taher, a company that feeds students every school day willingly put its meals to the test against real-food standards and its chefs rose to the challenge. Second, parents who stopped by the competition echoed a clear message: they want better food for their children. The demand is there. The job is supply.

Public and Private Sectors at One Table

The World Food Championships continued the momentum on Sunday with two closed-door VIP Food Policy Roundtables, both featuring Admiral Brian Christine, Assistant Secretary for Health, and Calley Means, senior advisor at HHS. The private-sector session brought together influential leaders from agriculture, the produce supply chain, wholesale distribution, rural healthcare, venture capital, and higher education with federal officials to exchange ideas, strengthen collaboration, and advance shared MAHA priorities.

The second roundtable brought together HHS dignitaries and public sector senior officials from the departments of agriculture for Kentucky, Ohio and Indiana, the Kentucky State Senate, the Indiana Economic Development Corporation, the America First Policy Institute, and MAHA Center. The discussions helped chart a path forward for the MAHA movement, emphasizing state-level model legislation, cross-sector partnerships, and practical, state-driven solutions to bring real food to the lunch trays of America’s children.

“The School Food Showdown proved what parents have known all along: when you give chefs the freedom and resources to cook real food, our kids will eat it,” said Deirdre Goldfarb, General Counsel of MAHA Center. “We cannot wait for Washington to fix school lunch on its own. Companies are ready to step up and meet the moment, and that is exactly what we saw at the World Food Championships this weekend. MAHA Center is ready to work alongside anyone who wants to build on this momentum.”

Across both sessions, the takeaways were consistent. Consumer demand for real food is already moving markets, and companies are reformulating, sourcing locally and removing dyes in response to that demand rather than waiting for regulation. States are using the tools they already hold, including procurement codes, school-meal contracting and hospital food programs to move real food onto trays without passing new mandates. And federal action, from the 2025–2030 Dietary Guidelines to the forthcoming definition of ultra-processed food, is giving states, hospitals and retailers a common standard to cite.

Calley Means, Senior Advisor for Healthcare and Nutritional Policy at HHS, emphasized that transforming meals in our institutions requires more than a single solution, it takes innovation, collaboration, and empowering the people preparing the food. “We have the most obese children in human history, and 70 percent of what we serve them at school lunch is ultra-processed. The answer is not a silver bullet. It is incremental steps, innovation from companies that are stepping up to meet the culture, and making real food cool again. The government touches food in schools, hospitals and the military. When you put energy behind the chefs, participation goes up. That is what we saw at the World Food Championships this weekend.”

MAHA Center outlined its own role as a proof-and-amplification partner: an IRB-approved, 150-patient clinical trial comparing the old and new Dietary Guidelines with clinical partners Toward Health and CoPow Foods; has presented 28 Rural Health Transformation Program applications across 11 states, including a rural hospital food model; and a national message platform that reaches millions through social channels.

About MAHA Center

MAHA Center is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to advancing the health and well-being of Americans through education, critical examination of health policy, and innovative solutions. Through public health education and research, MAHA Center works to reshape the national conversation about what it means to build a truly healthy America.

Media Contact: press@mahacenter.org

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SOURCE MAHA Center Inc.