Nicole Jahnke buys food for a living. But instead of loaves of bread, she buys truckloads. Instead of bags of apples, she buys cases.
As director of food and nutrition services for Topeka, Kan., public schools, it’s Jahnke’s responsibility to make sure 15,000 breakfasts and lunches are served to students each school day. Purchasing the amount of food needed to feed USD 501 requires careful planning and budgeting to satisfy student tastes as well as federal nutritional guidelines.
Buying nutrient-rich foods like fruits, vegetables and whole grains is essential to meeting federal expectations. Unfortunately, not all school budgets are equipped to handle the menu change.
“Everything just costs more,” Jahnke said.
Jahnke said she was spending 10 percent more on fresh produce this year despite serving close to same amount as last year. Paula Murrish, USD 497 food services director in Lawrence, said she was in a similar predicament. Her department has spent 5 percent more on fruits and vegetables and increased the percentage of the food budget spent on produce to 30 percent. Both said they expected expenses to continue rising as more and more produce and whole grain items are added to menus.
The added expenses are threatening to force Jahnke, Murrish and other Kansas administrators to plan for a bottom line in the red. Unless funding is increased to meet changing costs, the only solution may be to turn to government subsidization. Jahnke and Murrish said that without budget increases their districts would almost certainly be subsidized within five years.
The problem facing school administrators is the lack of additional funding to accompany revamped menus. To stay self-sufficient directors must find further resources to compensate for mounting produce and grain prices and the cost of production.
Jahnke said the unpredictability of prices because of weather and crop quality increased the degree of difficulty of staying within a rigid budget. The balancing act is even more tenuous considering that prices for those items are anything but stable.
“I think poor crops have been a big reason for price changes,” Jahnke said. “We’ve seen fluctuations in lettuce prices because of rain. We see orange prices skyrocket because of freezes in Florida. Apple prices are outrageous right now.”
The U.S. Department of Labor’s Consumer Pricing Index statistics demonstrate just how unpredictable produce prices can be. In 2007, the range in percent change of navel orange prices was 45 percentage points. In January the index indicated prices were only 9.2 percent higher than those in the base years between 1982-1984. In September that price was almost 55 percentage points more.
Price discrepancies between whole grain and enriched grain products also contribute to budget frustrations. Vicki Hoffman, director of nutrition services for USD 259 in Wichita, Kan., said she finds the gap in price difficult to justify when buying in the quantities necessary to feed tens of thousands of students.
Hoffman said that wheat-based entrees, for example whole-grain pretzels, can cost 10 to12 cents more than their enriched counterparts. She said she thinks the school district’s desire to increase the use of whole grains in its menus has led to even more price increases.
“Manufacturers, it seems to me, take advantage of that,” she said. “Anything that has whole grains in it, the price just went up. Whether it’s a volume thing or whether it’s just because they can I’m not real sure.”
While the cost of food is especially taxing, the strain on school districts doesn’t stop at rising food prices. Nearly every aspect of transporting, preparing and serving fresh produce and whole grains is more expensive than for the preprocessed counterparts.
For Midwest school districts price increases are also a result of skyrocketing fuel costs. Districts help assume the burden that the transportation of thousands of pounds of food places on shipping companies.
The result for schools away from coastal shipping centers is even higher prices. Murrish said she had experienced an 11-12 percent markup on certain items because of the long transportation distances necessary.
The added costs don’t end once the food arrives. Murrish said that although she would like to provide even more healthy options, she is limited not only by price but the additional labor needed to prepare thousands of servings of fruits and vegetables daily.
Murrish is far from being able to hire more staff. In fact, she was forced to take the opposite approach to meet her $5 million budget. USD 497 downsized its labor force from 151 to 108 employees, restricting the amount of preparation Murrish’s staff can undertake. Without the additional help, Murrish said the process needed to prepare fresh produce and healthy entrees was nearly impossible on an overstretched budget.
“It’s expensive to do stir-fry and cook your vegetables and do all the labor processing of fruits and vegetables,” Murrish said. “We would much rather clean our broccoli or make our own coleslaw, but it’s just prohibitive when it comes to the amount of time it takes.”
Hoffman said the problem was even more pronounced in large districts. Hoffman and her staff serve between 34,000 and 40,000 meals per day. Even though USD 259 uses huge facilities and automated machinery, the job remains overwhelming.
“Because of the number of meals we serve even the production costs more," she said. "When we have orange wedges on the elementary menu it takes three days for the kitchen to cut orange wedges.”
Despite the cost of providing students with healthy alternatives to traditional cafeteria fare, budget crunches in school districts are forcing them to consider a future reliant on subsidized funds. The rise in prices of food and fuel seem unlikely to reverse.
For Jahnke and Murrish, the only solution is more money. Jahnke said that if her budget rose by a minimum of 3 percent every year she might have a chance at avoiding subsidization.
Murrish was less optimistic. She said she could last the rest of this year but would need significant funding increases to continue growing the program the district is committed to developing in Lawrence schools.
Luckily for Murrish, USD 497 is devoted to changing the way its students eat. Although she faces the possibility of subsidization, Murrish said the program will continue expanding even if that means losing money
“I do not see us backing down from wellness initiates,” Murrish said. “I do not see us stopping where we’ve been just so we could sell more. If anything it’s going to go the other way.”