Adult Meal Prices
A
question that is frequently posed to Child & Adult Nutrition Services is why
adult meals cost more than student meals but the serving sizes are the same.
If you’re in a restaurant and two people order the same meal, one would wonder
why there were two different prices. To understand this price difference
in schools, one must understand the purpose and funding of the Child Nutrition
Programs. The Child Nutrition Programs are designed to provide meals to
students and those meals are the only ones for which the school receives
reimbursement and, for lunch, a commodity entitlement. Even a lunch served
to a child in the “paid” category receives subsidy in reimbursement and
commodity entitlement. In order to operate a financially sound nutrition
program, the participation level needs to be high and providing meals to
children in all eligibility categories so that it is a nutrition program instead
of a welfare program helps ensure that sound program. FNS
Instruction requires adult prices to cover the cost of the meal, including
federal cash and commodity subsidy. That is, student meal prices cannot
subsidize adult meal prices, along the same lines that free and reduced price
meal reimbursements are not supposed to subsidize full-price student meals or a
la carte sales. NSLP Numbered Memo 56 from Child & Adult Nutrition
Services covers this topic in more detail. The
school has a couple of alternatives in this situation. One option would be
to educate the adults so they understand why their meal of the same portion
sizes costs more than the student’s meal does. Another option would be
to increase portion sizes for adults, with an increase in their meal price.
The inherent danger in this is that adults will improperly and unfairly blame
school food service for resultant weight gain from eating all of their food
which is likely more than they need for activity level. That old lesson
about cleaning your plate because there are starving children somewhere in the
world stays with us forever!
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