Last modified: Sunday, July 20, 2008 2:44 AM EDT School lunch costs spike BY JENNIFER ROACH FOR THE SUN CHRONICLE School lunches are often the butt of bad jokes about bouncing chicken nuggets or frumpy cafeteria ladies, but with soaring food costs starting to affect prices at schools across the state, there's not much to laugh about these days. North Attleboro, Attleboro and King Philip have already set price increases for student lunches next year, and other schools are waiting to hear the verdict in the coming months. According to Attleboro School Business Manager Marc Furtado, when the grocery bill of the schools' food provider, Aramark, shot up 11 percent, the schools were forced to raise their own prices to make up the difference. "For the last 10 to 15 years, there has been a 2 to 3 percent increase in Aramark's costs, but when prices spike 11 percent like this, it's very hard for us to absorb," Furtado said. He said any slight increase causes the school to raise prices because they have no bottom line. "(The lunch program) is not meant to generate profits; it's meant to provide healthy, quality food to students," Furtado said. For Attleboro, that means raising costs from $1.85 to $2 for elementary school pupils and bumping prices up to $2.50 for middle and high school students. In North Attleboro, elementary and middle school students will pay $2.25, and the high school lunch will increase to $2.50. Parents now have to decide whether the price increase is still worth the guarantee of a balanced meal for their children during the long school day. "It's the people on the cusp who this will be a problem for," said Christopher Frost, a North Attleboro school committee member. "It may force people into brown-bagging it." Frost and Furtado both predict participation in school lunch programs will drop at the beginning of the year, but rise as parents and families realize the extra time for making lunches doesn't fit into their hectic schedules. Furtado also said that for most, school lunches at $2.25 or $2.50 a pop still beat out the costs of the local market. "I can't help but believe that parents aren't going to be able to do much better in a grocery store," Furtado said. Soaring food and gasoline costs in recent months have caused the first rise in school lunch costs most schools in the area have experienced since the state-mandated wellness policy change a few years ago that forced schools to spend more on healthy foods to help fight childhood obesity. "A few years ago, schools were under the gun to develop specific policies for the food they provided, and unfortunately, the more nutritionally sound the food, the more money it is," Furtado said. More than three-quarters of school lunch programs in the country have experienced increased costs as a result of implementing nutrition standards, the School Nutrition Association indictates. Many food items critical to providing balanced, nutritious school meals saw double-digit increases during 2007, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Milk increased by 17 percent, rice and pasta, 13 percent, cheese by 15 percent and bread by 12 percent. King Philip Regional School Committee members this past week approved a price hike in school lunches from $2.25 to $2.50 for both the middle and high schools because of skyrocketing food costs. Prices have increased up to nearly 20 percent, and most vendors have added fuel surcharges to each delivery, school officials said. Food and supplies are projected to increase by $61,552 or 15 percent overall. "Food costs are going up just astronomical - everything," Food Services Director Carol Troiano said, adding it is the biggest increases she has seen in her 20-plus years working in the cafeteria program, the last 15 years as director. While lunch prices have jumped three of the past five years, participation in the program continued to climb, but given the dismal economy, Troiano said she is offering no guarantees this year. Foxboro School Committee Chairwoman Beverley Lord said thanks to the hard work of the public school's Director of Food Services Martha Dooley, the town has been able to avoid major prices increases in recent years. "We have an extremely competent food services department," Lord said. "They've always thought 'avant-garde' when it comes to food." Foxboro is one school that, for now, has been able to stabilize meals prices for the upcoming year. "We are monitoring it very carefully, and at the present we do not anticipate an increase," Lord said. Plainville School Committee member Lisa Berry said the board does expect the superintendent to recommend a price increase at the next school committee meeting in August - but even if the increase happens, Plainville school lunches will still not exceed $1.75. "We are still one of the least expensive lunch programs in the area, so I don't think there's going to be that much concern. There's always ways to get healthy, nutritional lunches to the children," Berry said, referring to the free and reduced lunch programs offered at Plainville and all public schools in the area. Although the hikes may not be hitting residents' wallets quite yet, schools fear that if the country's economy continues as it has been, it could become a more serious problem to come. "We see it every time we go to the supermarket or fill our gas tank, or pay for our home oil," Frost said, "It's necessary."