Email article
Print article
Digg
Del.icio.us
Newsvine
In 2006, whole milk cost an average of $3.20 per gallon. This year, it’s up to $3.87 per gallon, according to the Boston Globe. Of course, milk isn’t the only food commodity to go up in price this year, but it is the item that seems to most infiltrate the use of all other products. It affects the cost of cheese, the consumption of cereal, competition with soft drinks. It even intricately involves itself in the economy of gas.
The possibility of growing bodies without milk is a problem school cafeterias across the country are worried about.
This year, Miami-Dade County schools anticipate paying $4.5 million more for milk than last year. Schools in Montgomery County, Md., expect a milk bill $600,000 higher than last year. And in Davie County, N.C., Yoo-hoo drinks have been put back in schools because they’re cheaper - less healthy, but still cheaper.
Luckily, schools in Temple and surrounding areas said they have no intention of swapping milk for Yoo-hoo, but they are concerned about prices.
Generally speaking, public schools work on a contract basis, so their milk prices are fixed at the beginning of each year. However, this does not entirely exempt them from the rising cost of milk on the market.
“We don’t know for sure what the cost of milk will be for next year,” Reba Baker, director of school nutrition for Belton school district, said. “But we expect it will go up a penny or so a carton. That may not sound like a lot, but that’s a significant amount for us. Nearly every kid has a carton of milk at breakfast and lunch. So that one or one-and-a-half cent increase will carry an impact of somewhere between $15,000 and $20,000 for us. That’s not paying for all food, you know; that’s money just for milk.”
Pearl Arthur, food service director for Troy ISD, estimates similar problems.
“We won’t know until we get our bid, but I feel sure that the price will go up,” Ms. Arthur said. “That means we’ll just have to go up with the budgeting. I mean we have to offer milk; it’s a USDA requirement. Taking away milk is never an option.”
Ms. Baker agreed.
“Milk is one of the most perfect foods they (students) can get,” she said. “Even if it weren’t required by the USDA, or by the state of Texas, which has an even stricter policy, we would serve it. Even if the price of milk goes higher, it’s not something you say, ‘Well, we’ll serve something else instead.’”
But the rising milk prices may cut back on the serving of other products, like cheese.
“We just got a notice from the USDA that we might not get much cheese this year because the price is so very high,” Ms. Arthur said. “All dairy has really shot up. So we may not get as much of some things because of the prices.”
But if the price of milk is going up, budgets aren’t really increasing, and schools are continuing to serve milk, the cutbacks will have to come from somewhere.
Regina Baird, district spokeswoman for Temple ISD, said the cutbacks are definitely not coming from educational monies.
“The first thing to know is that we’re working with separate pools of money,” Ms. Baird said. “Rising food costs are not gonna affect whether or not we hire that new teacher. It’s not like we’re not buying new textbooks because milk costs more.”
It’s more like they’re not buying new freezers because milk costs more, Ms. Baker said.
“We’ve started talking about it a little bit,” she said. “Probably one of the things that will get hurt first is the ability to purchase extra equipment. In schools as large as Belton, you plan your budget for big items like refrigerators, stoves and new mixers. With the rising milk costs, those things are now more likely to be left out.”
Temple ISD’s Director of Food Services, Angie Martinez, said meal prices may also have to go up to compensate.
“If there’s a big impact because of the milk, we may have to increase prices, meal prices,” she said. “I don’t want to increase prices at this point, but we also certainly do not want to go with a lesser quality of products. We can do other things, like watch our plate waste. We can watch our use of paper goods. Maybe we don’t need that utensil pack. Or maybe I won’t put the salt and pepper packs in there. But we won’t just start taking away food items.”