PUEBLO CITY SCHOOLS

 
 
 
 

Pueblo City Schools declared an ambitious goal — to be the nutrition hub for their entire community — and Director of Nutrition Services Jill Kidd and her team were determined to make good on that promise. Equipped with funds from a No Kid Hungry grant, Kidd brought on ProTeam, and our environmental design partner Visualz, to build a brand from the ground up that was as bold and ambitious as this goal. From there: D60 Foodworks was born.

 

THE STORY

We hit the ground running with a two day blitz that involved visits to six Pueblo school sites to gather as much data as we could about the district, its student population, and what drove the culinary story of this program. This included site visits to six Pueblo City schools, three lunch and two breakfast observations, two student focus group sessions, and one staff focus group session.

Several strategic questions guided our inquiry.

  • What is the community known for?

  • What foods are important?

  • What kind of atmosphere do students enjoy?

We discovered quickly that community members — specifically students — much preferred words (like “fresh”) which ignited a more exciting emotional reaction around food to culturally-loaded words like “healthy” and “nutritious.” We also found students responded positively to the concept of autonomy and creativity in building your own meal, a theme that played well as an eventual homage to the town’s history of steel production.

It was during these sessions that ProTeam also discovered the district’s secret ingredient: the Pueblo chile.

According to Kidd, the Pueblo chile forms a powerful core of their menu. “We are passionate about our green chile,” Kidd quipped.

Drawing on the town’s industrial history and their beloved Pueblo chile, the creative process unfurled and D60 Foodworks was born. The team landed on “Tough Fresh” as the new branded tagline and chose black and gray to compliment the vibrant colors of fresh produce and real food photography was utilized to drive home the connection to fresh and culturally diverse foods the district already prides itself on.

Kidd commented: “Our brand belief is that food is an authentic celebration.” And now Pueblo City Schools has a foundation of soundly branded assets to draw from in order to make this brand belief a lived reality for students and staff.