Maine school lunch trays are being taken over by locally grown foods

Food services staff in the Falmouth school department know they have a hit on their hands when parents start calling for the recipe.

A big part of the popularity of those recipes, according to the schools’ food services director Martha Poliquin, is a heavy reliance on local food.

Poliquin estimates that between 25 and 30 percent of the overall food budget is spent on locally grown, raised and processed ingredients either directly from farmers or on food grown by students on the Falmouth school campuses.