Schools and Communities Lose By Outsourcing Lunch Services

Huck/Konopacki Labor Cartoons

Public schools get about $1 billion worth of free surplus fruits, vegetables, meat and cheese from the USDA each year which, instead of preparing into healthy fresh meals, they outsource to large corporate food processors like Aramark and Sodexo. The “logic” of this system is that it is supposed to save schools money on labor costs and economies of scale. In reality, schools do not save money in this scam, according to Lucy Komisar, when the fees charged by the food processors and supply costs are factored in.

Komisar notes that roughly one-fourth of the school nutrition program has been privatized and outsourced, primarily to just a few food giants, like Sodexo, Aramark, Chartwells, Tyson and Pilgrim’s. Of the $1 billion in free surplus foods given to schools each year, close to half is sent out for processing (a 50% increase since 2006) to make things like chicken nuggets, tater tots and pizza. Yet, instead of saving money, schools are paying kickbacks and other fees to these companies and getting little more than junk food in return.

Komisar points to research by Roland Zulio, from the University of Michigan, who found that the amount of money Michigan schools spent on fees and supplies for this service was roughly equal to the amount they saved on labor and food costs, yielding no net savings for the schools. If one adds in the “external” costs, like the particulate air pollution and extra carbon added to the atmosphere caused by trucking these foods long distances, or the unionized local chef jobs lost to outsourced non-union corporate assembly lines, school lunches are a serious rip-off.

In his research, Zulio specifically noted that Chartwells (though this is likely true for the other processors, as well) was able to cut costs by slashing benefits for workers, but that these savings were not passed on to schools. He also discovered a correlation between low test scores and the degree to which school lunches were privatized, speculating that perhaps the excess fat, salt and sugar were impairing student achievement. However, it is also possible that low income schools are relying more heavily on food outsourcing than affluent schools and that the low test scores are due more to students’ socioeconomic backgrounds than their school lunches.

By outsourcing their food, fresh and wholesome ingredients are transformed into foods with the “same nutritional value as junk foods,” according to a report by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWF). The RWJ report found that over 50% of commodity foods are sent to processors first, where fat, sugar and sodium are added before being sent back to schools. In California, the report notes, over 82% of commodity food funds are spent on meat and cheese whereas only 13% is spent on fruits and vegetables.

While the RWJ report is a little old (2008) and things may have changed slightly in California and the nation as a whole, the fact remains that the bulk of school lunches do get heavily processed and outsourced to food giants like Aramark and Sodexo, making the foods less healthy while providing schools with no economic benefit.

School Lunch Lies: Green Meals = Overpriced Junk

Revolution Foods claims that they can provide organic, eco-friendly meals cooked from scratch for the same cost as government subsidized free lunches. However, while they charge approximately $3 per lunch for their cheapest meals (slightly more than the government reimbursement of $2.72), this only covers the cost of the ingredients. Their meals are delivered the day before they are served, so they must be refrigerated and reheated. Cafeteria workers must also clean up, and check students to make sure they qualify for free lunch and check their meals to make sure they qualify, too, all adding labor costs well over and above the $3. Then there is pest management, utilities and janitorial costs to keep the cafeteria up and running, all paid for by the individual school. Government meals, in contrast, cost around $1 each for the actual food, leaving ample to cover the other costs.

Revolution Foods, which started in Oakland, California, in 2006, now provides lunch to nearly 40,000 students throughout California, Colorado and Washington. While they advertise themselves as a “green” business producing “wholesome” and “healthy” foods, many of their products are highly processed Fruit Mashups and Jammy Sammy Sandwich Bars. Furthermore, getting their products to schools in three different states and producing all that unnecessary packaging creates a carbon footprint that can hardly be considered insignificant.

Ultimately, Revolution Foods is just another example of a private, for-profit business capitalizing on government subsidized meals, like Sodexo, and Aramark, and their green marketing just another form of advertising.

Let Them Eat Government Cheese!

While the ruling elite and their lackeys in the Republican and Democratic parties negotiate further tax cats for the richest 1% of Americans, a new report from the USDA indicates that 15% of U.S. households (50 million people) lacked enough money to buy adequate food last year. One-third of these went hungry on a regular basis. It should be self-evident that poverty is the primary cause of hunger, as there is no shortage of food in America. Over 50 million Americans now live below the poverty line, with 25% of all U.S. families having at least one member receiving food stamps or other food aid.

This problem will likely grow worse as congress tries to slash the deficit. Earlier this year, the unemployment benefits extension was partially paid for by cuts to the food stamps program, while the senate version of the school lunch bill slashes another $2 billion from food stamps to cover increased costs of school lunches. In their charade of trying to appear sensitive to the needs of children, they will make sure that kids are fed at school, while preventing their parents from feeding them at home. Extending the Bush tax cuts, on the other hand, will cost $70 billion per year, more than all nutrition programs combined.

Bolstering the school lunch program at the expense of food stamps may seem like a classic case of robbing Peter to pay Paul, but the story is a little more insidious. Food stamps are often seen as a taxpayer subsidy to poor people, a free handout. Poor people are portrayed as villains, greedy, lazy, and incompetent. Anyone can succeed in America if they just work hard; therefore, giving them food stamps is like rewarding them for their indolence. Kids, on the other hand, are innocent and must be protected. If kids are poor and hungry, it must be the fault of their lazy, incompetent parents. Therefore, let’s feed them at school and not punish them further for their parents’ mistakes. Additionally, the First Lady has taken on school lunch as her own personal pet project, adding to its appeal.Yet the current plan being offered by congress only adds a few cents per student, hardly enough to go from downer cows and tater tots to salad bars and tofu.

Seldom discussed are the huge profits to be reaped from both programs. Since the food stamp program switched to electronic debit cards in the 1990s, CitiCorp has emerged as one of the largest beneficiaries of the program, managing billions of dollars each month in disbursement benefits for Food Stamps, the Veterans Administration, Medicare and other government agencies. They often charge recipients for access, in addition to their profits from disbursements, while providing mediocre to lousy service. School lunch programs also subsidize huge corporations like Aramark, Sodexo and Compass, which earn billions from the program while serving mass produced and sometimes illness-provoking garbage to our kids. 

Malnutrition and undernourishment contribute to a host of conditions that harm children and undermine their ability to succeed academically. Hunger makes it hard to concentrate and pay attention in class. Malnourished mothers are more like to give birth to underweight babies, increasing the risk of cognitive impairment. Malnourishment contributes to iron deficiency anemia which can lead to learning disabilities. Because junk food is so much cheaper than nutritious food, poor families eat more of it and have a much higher risk of obesity and obesity-related diseases. Food insecurity also contributes to stress, which causes the overproduction of the stress hormone, cortisol. Chronic overexposure to cortisol can cause memory problems, and contributes to hypertension, cancer, diabetes and heart disease. It also weakens the immune system, potentially increasing the number of days kids miss school. 

The real robbery story here is not about Peter and Paul. It is about the rich robbing the rest of us.