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Soaring food prices may hit school cafeterias
| Wednesday, Apr 16 2008 4:20 PM
Last Updated: Thursday, Apr 17 2008 7:19 AM
Bakersfield area students may have to pay a bit more for school lunches over the next year or two amid soaring prices on the world food market, but the menu options probably won’t change.
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School districts across the country are grappling with higher costs for milk, fruits, vegetables and other foods that hit the cafeteria tray. At the same time, they’re trying to keep meals healthy.
“We’re serving the same thing we always have,” said Wallace McCormick, superintendent of the Norris School District in Bakersfield. “We’re trying very hard to keep all this from affecting students. So far, we’re breaking even, but if prices keep going up, in ’09 or ’10 families should probably expect a price increase.”
Norris charges elementary school students $2.50 to buy lunch. Middle schoolers pay $3.
Mason Hollingsworth is food service manager for the office of the Kern County Superintendent of Schools, which is part of a cooperative that purchases cafeteria food for 36 school districts. Lunch at participating schools is $1.50. Breakfast is $1.
Yet the schools have seen milk prices, which fluctuate, increase up to 42 percent over last year. Produce is up 10 to 25 percent.
It’s too soon to know if the schools will be forced to pass along those hikes to parents next year. Everyone’s waiting for the outcome of budget negotiations at the county and state levels before making a decision, Hollingsworth said.
Either way, nutrition will be a priority. “Obviously our main concern is healthy meals for kids,” he said.
Sharon Briel, food service director at the Kern High School District, is trying to convince local legislators to oppose Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s proposed cuts of 10 percent across the board in favor of targeted cuts that don’t affect children.
Because vendor contracts are negotiated ahead of time, high school district prices are secure this year for everything but milk, which is not bound by a long-term agreement. A single carton of milk has gone up from 17 cents to 22 cents.
But those contracts will be renegotiated next year, when Briel estimates school lunches will increase by 5 cents to 10 cents.
“The vendors this year are staying true to their contracts and eating the costs, but nearly all of them are not renewing at the same prices for next year,” Briel said.
This couldn’t come at a worse time, Briel added, because local districts already were losing money from state mandates to sell less junk food in favor of healthier options.
She doesn’t regret efforts to make children eat healthier, but the sodas and high-fat, high-sugar items sold better, “so it’s almost like a double whammy,” Briel said.
The change has cost the district about $1.4 million in a la carte sales.