If you think feeding your family is expensive due to inflation, try feeding 12,500 kids a day.

That’s what Manteca Unified School District Nutritional Education is up against.

Nationally, school districts have been forced to raise they lunch prices as much as 50 cents with some ingredient prices spiked 40 percent or more based on a Wall Street Journal survey.

Manteca Unified, as well as other California public schools, are required under state law to provide a breakfast and lunch to students that request a meal, free of charge for each school day.  All students in MUSD are eligible to receive one no cost breakfast and one no cost lunch every day. 

The impact of inflation on households likely accounts for a surge in the number of students this school year taking advantage of free meals.

There has been an uptick of 800 students a day being fed. That’s about double the increase in enrollment of 462 students districtwide.

Now just under half of district’s 24,616 students do not to bring their lunch or opt for other options.

Nutrition Education is funded  60% by the United States Department of Agriculture and 40% by the State of California. 

But even with the state supplying Child Nutrition programs with additional funding to offset the cost of inflation and supply chain strain, it is still a struggle.  The additional funds are scheduled to end on June 30, 2022.

Tracee Franks, coordinator of Nutrition Education, noted Manteca Unified has been impacted by inflation, but has been “successful at navigating inflation costs and continues to provide quality food to students

“Scratch cooked items, semi scratch cooked items, and student tested menus are just some of the ways that MUSD has offset the impacts of inflation,” Franks said. “MUSD has not cut back on food or supplies due to inflation, but rather supply chain strain.  Certain items, such as rice and lettuce,  must now be procured from numerous vendors to meet demand as opposed to procuring all supply of a particular item from the lowest bidder.”    
The price of teacher lunches is $4.50 — unchanged from last year.

Prices for adult meals are calculated at the beginning of every school year to ensure cost offsets expenses.  This year, it was determined that an increase was not needed.  Teacher meal cost will be evaluated again in July of 2023. 

To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@nmantecabulletin.com