Leading with Purpose and Partnership

Leading with Purpose and Partnership

Lake Havasu Unified School District’s Rapid Removal of UltraProcessed Additives

In early 2025, Lake Havasu Unified School District (LHUSD)—a public district serving nearly 5,000 students in Lake Havasu City, Arizona—launched a fastmoving effort to eliminate 11 ultraprocessed food additives from school meals. The initiative aligned with proposed legislation introduced by Arizona State Representative Leo Biasiucci, who met with the district’s school board to present HB 2164, a bill focused on improving the quality of food served in schools beginning in the 2026-2027 school year.

What followed was a model of collaboration, urgency, and community-driven change—led by Food Service Director Chef Christopher Gallaga, Child Nutrition Supervisor Anne Taffe, and School Board Member David Rose.

We were all still talking about this initiative and trying to get the law approved, and Taher just did it. They showed us this can be done.

Arizona State Representative Leo Biasiucci

The Challenge: A Student-Focused Mission

The district didn’t want to wait for the law to go into effect to make these changes, and the mission laid out by the Board of Directors was significant—conduct a full audit to identify and replace all items containing these targeted additives to be implemented at the start of the 2025-2026 school year—a full year ahead of the state law.

When the initiative was introduced, the foodservice team immediately aligned around one priority: if my customers want this, we are all-in. It’s our responsibility to serve our customers. Together, Gallaga and Taffe launched a full audit report of every product served in school meals. The initiative focused on removing items containing:

Potassium bromate
Propylparaben
Titanium dioxide
Brominated vegetable oil
Yellow dyes 5 & 6
Blue dyes 1 & 2
Green dye 3
Red dyes 3 & 40

From cereals and snacks to entrees and raw ingredients, no category was overlooked.

The Solution: Fast, Hands-On Ingredient Audits

Working side-by-side, Gallaga and Taffe:

- Reviewed vendor specification sheets line by line
- Manually searched ingredient lists for the 11 additives
- Visited local grocery stores to compare formulas and source alternatives
- Partnered with distributors to ensure availability of replacement items

Bringing our menus into compliance with Arizona’s updated nutrition standards was remarkably easy. After reviewing hundreds of products, only a few contained the newly restricted ingredients. Taher’s commitment to high-quality, thoughtfully sourced foods meant minimal disruption for our schools.

Anne Taffe, Child Nutrition Supervisor

The Result:

The audit revealed only 12 menu items in thousands of recipes needed to be replaced, making it possible to achieve success in record time. The results are attributed to Taher’s Food4Life™ initiative to incorporate products and recipes that use fresh, high quality, wholesome foods. The company has been eliminating harmful additives since 2007, long before other foodservice companies or regulations started to do the same.

The mission exceeded expectations, and all targeted additives were removed from all meal components served at LHUSD four months ahead of the mandated deadline.

Within weeks, LHUSD’s achievement was making waves. The district’s work earned Chef Gallaga an invitation to speak on a panel about clean‑ingredient innovation in school meals at The Vital Project’s event in Mesa, AZ.

Impact on the Meal Program

This initiative enhanced Taher’s already robust Food4Life™ efforts by allowing the team to offer healthier choices without sacrificing appeal. The team continued expanding flavorful scratch cooked options, including Taher’s Limited Time Offer dishes such as turkey shawarma and chickpea masala, and its Harvest of the Month program featuring a new fruit, vegetable, and herb for students to try.

Meal Participation Gains

Meal participation increased by 12%, despite a districtwide 9% decrease in enrollment year over year, a strong indicator that the initiative—and broader menu improvements—were resonating with students and families.

Minimal Cost Impact

The cost differences in many replacements—such as switching to natural turmeric-colored pickles instead of artificially dyed ones—were negligible. This kept the initiative financially sustainable.

Why It Worked:

The Power of a Nimble Model

Gallaga credited Taher’s structure—particularly its lack of heavy bureaucracy—for enabling rapid action. Instead of waiting on multilayer approval processes, he could:

- Notify leadership directly
- Begin the work immediately
- Make decisions in real time to meet client needs

This agility contrasted sharply with more rigid foodservice models and strengthened the district’s trust in Taher’s partnership.

Strengthening Healthy Menu Innovation Through Taher Food4Life™

In parallel, Gallaga’s team is expanding scratch cooked, globally inspired offerings and exploring districtwide rollout—including potential expansion into elementary schools via central kitchen distribution.

Through the leadership of Chef Gallaga, the partnership of Anne Taffe, the governance support of David Rose, and alignment with Rep. Leo Biasiucci’s legislative direction, LHUSD transformed a potentially burdensome mandate into a meaningful success story—one that improved trust, strengthened community engagement, and elevated the quality of meals served to thousands of students each day.

Taher, Inc.
Service, Value, Integrity…Proven by Time.

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