OGLESBY, Texas (KXXV) — This upcoming school year, more students will have fresher meals coming from the beef raised on Blayr Barnard’s local farm.
The Barnard Family Farm has served the community for nearly 100 years — recently, they began providing meat to some local schools.
“School lunches went viral because there were 26 ingredients in a ground beef patty — those range from fillers like soybean protein, down to straight chemicals," Barnard said.
"I don't want my kid to eat 26 ingredients out of something that should be one — I'd rather them have real beef."
Those 26 ingredients were the reason Barnard wanted to start serving students.
She says there should only be one ingredient in beef — 100% real beef. Her farm provides just that.
“Local kids will be able to eat beef that was grown right here,” Barnard said.
“The more you can shorten that food cycle where things are not being trucked all the way across the country or put on ships and brought across the ocean — that's better for the person, it's better for the economy, it's better for everybody.”
Now, the meat from the local farm is delivered to many nearby school districts: McGregor, Crawford and Lampasas.
Barnard says it would not have been possible without the teachers and employees there, who care.
“These employees took it on themselves and said, ‘We need to provide better for our students, and we need to work harder for our students, and provide them the best food that we can' — that to me, is just incredible,” Barnard said.
