...the government spends $2.68 a day per child, while only spending $.93 a day on food. The problem isn’t that the government isn’t spending enough money. $1.75 per meal per day on operations is an absolute pathetic joke that reflects an egregious example of government incompetence. When I was catering school lunches, we charged $2.50 (less then the government pays), spent $1.60-1.75 per meal on average on food, covered our operational costs including labor, and still made a decent profit. Sorry, Chef Ann Cooper, the problem isn’t that we aren’t spending enough money, the problem is that people like you fail to recognize the broken nature of this system, and despite its flaws still advocate that the government should be involved in something that clearly sucks at doing.
You are never going to increase the overall nutritional value of lunches as long as the Department of Agriculture, (a massive, entrenched, worthless government bureaucracy that has worn out its usefulness) uses the National School Lunch program for dumping all the excess commodities that it is responsible for creating through inefficient subsidies.
You want to see the quality of school lunches increase? Privatize the whole thing.
VH: I agree with Benjamin, privatize school lunches. The core mission of schools should be teaching and not running an expensive unionized cafeteria; Mr. Burr runs a school lunch software business that deserves your attention.
