Forbes, June 9, 2008: Rising food costs put pinch on Tenn. institutions
By RANDALL DICKERSON 06.09.08, 11:25 AM ET
NASHVILLE, Tenn. –
Food directors at Tennessee institutions are dreading increases in already high food costs – but the pinch is sparking some creative solutions.
Officials in school systems, prisons, hospitals and other institutions must provide meals that meet state or federal nutritional standards. They are looking at ways to stretch the budget that range from raising the price students must pay for lunch to doing a little digging in the dirt.
Food prices in the U.S. rose about 4 percent last year – the fastest rate since 1990, according to the U.S. Agriculture Department. Prices on some foods rose much faster. White bread prices rose 13 percent last year; bacon spiked 7 percent. Peanut butter jumped 9 percent.
And it’s picking up speed. Food inflation is running at an annualized rate of 6.1 percent as of April, the U.S. Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics reported last month.
As state correction commissioner, George Little operates the prisons in Tennessee. He said the March 2008 cost per prison meal was $3.17 – up 24 cents from the $2.93 it cost to provide an equivalent meal in March 2007.
“We’re getting hit on two fronts,” Little said. “Overall raw food costs are going up, and transportation costs are also going up.”
Little explained that the prison system’s cook-chill system in Nashville prepares food for the 16 prisons and trucks it to the institutions. It then is heated, portioned and served to more than 19,000 inmates.
Little said the crunch prompted “a pretty lively discussion with the wardens” about what will be planted in the prisons’ truck patches.
The result will be that inmates at each prison will grow vegetables and fruits best suited to its location – such as potatoes in east Tennessee and melons in the sandier soil of west Tennessee.
Instead of the cook-chill trucks returning empty, they’ll haul away the produce to be used in meals for all the prisons. Menus are also being reworked to address cost and nutrition issues.
The price increases for raw foods, transportation and energy used to prepare meals predicted by federal agriculture officials has also proven daunting for Vicky Fortner. She’s the nutrition director for Perry County schools in the rural area on the Tennessee River west of Nashville.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimated the full cost for a lunch at $2.49 for the school year just ended, but an expected $2.91 for the year beginning in the fall.
Mary Lou Henry oversees the food service in the much larger Knox County school system and points out the option of charging pupils more for breakfasts and lunches at school. Both systems plan to go up by a quarter.
The price increases are being echoed across the state with similar boosts in Clarksville-Montgomery County, Williamson County and other systems.
That helps, but not all 36,000 Knox County students eating lunch pay for it. In the school year just ended, 38 percent of the students received free or reduced-price lunches because their families were below or near the federal poverty level.
Henry said her system does a periodic labor study to see if there are ways to cut preparation costs and one is being done this summer.
“You have to look at all the ways in which you can cut costs,” Henry said. “One way is to offer more items as a la carte choices.”
George Little serves a different – and sometimes more demanding – prison clientele.
Little pointed to a riot that broke out years ago at the old main prison in Nashville – a fight he said started when the prison ran out of pork chops at one meal and substituted bologna.
“They take food very seriously,” he said.