Serving fresh, scratch-made food at scale sounds simple—until you try to do it across dozens of schools, multiple states, and through strict federal nutrition programs.
That’s the problem Ordo was built to solve.
Ordo is a K–12 food service partner that combines scratch-made meals, local chefs and suppliers, and a purpose-built technology platform to help schools serve better food without adding operational complexity. Today, Ordo supports schools across 15+ states, working with hundreds of chefs to deliver meals students actually want to eat.
Here’s how Ordo makes scratch-made school food work—reliably and at scale.
Our chefs are experts at fresh food
Ordo does not rely on centralized factories or frozen meal shipments.
Instead, Ordo has a network of 500+ chefs and commercial kitchens across the country. We recruit real chefs who have significant experience in cooking from scratch, unlike most companies. Our entire model revolves around connecting schools with local chefs and ingredients from local suppliers.
This kind of model allows Ordo to:
- Serve fresher food with less processing
- Adapt menus to regional preferences
- Maintain consistency without sacrificing quality
Step 2: Menus designed for students (and participation)
Scratch-made only works if students actually eat the food.
Ordo’s menus focus on familiar favorites made the right way—homestyle meals prepared with whole ingredients, seasonal produce, and kid-approved flavors.
Menus rotate regularly to keep things interesting while maintaining consistency students can count on. The result is higher trust, stronger participation, and healthier programs overall.
In some Ordo partner schools, participation has increased by over 100% after switching to scratch-made meals.
Step 3: Built-in nutrition and USDA compliance
Behind every scratch-made meal is a complex layer of requirements.
Ordo’s platform is built to support federal and state programs such as:
- NSLP (National School Lunch Program)
- SBP (School Breakfast Program)
- CACFP (Child and Adult Care Food Program)
Meals are designed with nutrition standards in mind, and Ordo’s system helps schools generate required documentation like production records, meal counts, and reports—without manual spreadsheets or last-minute scrambling.
This allows schools to focus on serving students, not chasing paperwork.
Step 4: Technology that connects kitchens, schools, and families
Our fresh food service is powered by our own software built specifically for school meal programs.
Schools can manage menus, orders, and participation through Ordo’s platform, while families and students can order meals online or at school, depending on the program setup.
This technology layer helps:
- Improve forecasting and reduce waste
- Simplify daily service
- Track participation accurately
- Create a smoother experience for families
It’s not generic food service software. It’s built around how schools actually operate.
Scratch-made food at a national scale—without losing the local touch
Since expanding nationwide in 2022, Ordo has grown rapidly while staying true to its roots: fresh food, cooked from scratch, for students.
By combining local chefs with centralized systems and support, Ordo has built a model that works for schools of all sizes—across 15+ states and counting.
