Between them, Kristin Richmond and Kirsten Tobey have worked on Wall Street, traveled the world and taught school from East Africa to Ecuador. Now they make lunch for a living.
Friends since they met in business school at the University of California, Berkeley, Ms. Richmond and Ms. Tobey founded Revolution Foods Inc. to ride a political and economic wave: surging support for healthier food in school cafeterias.
Federal nutrition guidelines require subsidized school lunches to meet benchmarks on calories and fat, but they do not require that foods be whole, local, truly nutritious or good to eat.
As a result, the standard cafeteria fare is doing little to curb the nation's rising rate of childhood obesity and might even be contributing to it.
That was the problem that Ms. Richmond and Ms. Tobey identified in a graduate school class and set out to solve. What began as a class project is now a growing company with headquarters in Oakland, 240 employees and operations in Los Angeles, Denver and Washington.
"The momentum around this issue is unbelievable," said Ms. Tobey in an interview this month.
Making a Healthy Lunch, and Making It a Cause
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Making a Healthy Lunch, and Making It a Cause
By Daniel Weintraub
Star News Online, January 24, 2010
Straight to the Source
