She wanted to make a chicken sandwich with fewer chemicals for schoolkids. How hard could it be?

Between tight budgets and the stranglehold of big corporations on the school food supply, the system seems stacked against healthy options

After more than three decades of working to feed students under increasingly difficult circumstances, Katie Wilson was fed up. The leader of the Urban School Food Alliance, a non-profit that supports nutrition programs at the country's largest school districts, wanted to do something to disrupt a school food status quo she says is so broken it's unbelievable".

Wilson's biggest beef is with the convoluted and overly restrictive way schools are forced to purchase food, something she thought the alliance could start to change. In 2021, she decided to try something deceptively simple: creating a recipe for a chicken patty.