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School lunchrooms are feeling the price pinch as food and oil prices continue to climb.
School districts in Utah County are beginning to charge more for meals, serving cheaper items and cutting deserts while waiting for food prices to stop climbing.
"I'm hoping for a miracle in that it's going to level out," said Jenilee McComb, the child nutrition supervisor for the Provo School District.
This week, Provo School District raised the cost of school breakfast and lunch by 25 cents due to increasing costs. Full-cost lunch for elementary school children is now $1.75 instead of $1.50. Nebo School District is expected to pass a similar increase soon.
"Wheat, corn, fruit -- everything is just rising like crazy. That incudes supplies as well, like paper products," McComb said.
She said in bread and milk alone the costs are thousands of dollars more than they were last year.
Alpine School District is not planning to increase the cost of lunch, but business administrator Rob Smith said in an e-mail that the district has increased its food expense budget by about $600,000 for this school year and plans to dip into reserves to help offset increasing costs.
The increasing transportation costs get passed to the districts as well as increasing food prices. McComb said fuel surcharges on cases of food have been growing. A few months ago the surcharge was 4 cents a case. Now it is as high as 13 cents.
Ilene Carter, the food service director in Alpine School District, said the district is definitely keeping tabs on prices, and an increase in what the district charges for lunch is likely after next year.
"More than likely [we'll] probably have to raise prices," Carter said. "We're hoping we can get through next year."
Even with the recently passed price increase, Kerry Smith, Provo School District's business administrator, said the district's child nutrition budget is running a deficit as large as $50,000 that will have to be covered by funds that have been saved to cover the cost of new equipment.
"Energy costs and world food demand are putting unprecedented inflationary pressures on food and food delivery charges," Smith said. "We are hoping food prices stabilize and possibly decline next year so we won't have to do further price increases."
Bill Vest, the food service director for Nebo School District, said he has had to make trade-offs to keep fresh fruits and vegetables in lunch and breakfast.
He said they may serve pasta more often and only offer one desert a week.
• Brittani Lusk can be reached at 344-2549 or at
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