Weaving Local Foods into Your Menus

With all of the regulations and nutritional requirements, it can sometimes feel overwhelming to think about how to weave local products into a menu. This two part tool is designed to support your decision making process so you, and your team, can feel set up for success! While the resource above is a combined version of the tools, you can access each individual resource below.

This resource starts with our “Know Your Menu Decision Tree” (en español aquí) to help you make strategic decisions on using local foods. We break this out into 3 main phases:

  1. What do you already serve that could be purchased locally?
  2. How can you feature one local produce item?
  3. How can you develop a new recipe that highlights a local product? 

We then adapted Colorado Proud’s Produce Calendar to include additional items such as grains, sunflower oil, and animal proteins and built that out into the “Colorado Know Your Menu” (en español aquí) resource. We categorized each item into 3 main categories:

  • Low to Minimal Prep
    • Generally these are items that you are able to wash and serve whole or can use in small enough quantities while also making a big impact (such as fresh herbs). 
  • Minimal Prep
    • Generally these are items that require some light prep such as dicing or slicing and/or are well suited for mechanizing equipment such as a Sunkist Sectionizer or Food Processor. 
  • More Prep Required
    • Generally these are items that require a few more steps in order to slice or dice them, items that require cooking, and items that can be woven into a recipe 

To use these resources, we recommend you look at the “Know Your Menu Decision Tree” and decide which phase you want to focus on. And then, you refer to the “Colorado Know Your Menu” chart and select the relevant local product(s).

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