Costs hard to swallow

Say good-bye to grapes at salad bars in the Marysville Joint Unified School District.

Credit the $28 cost for a 20-pound case for the farewell to the fruit, one of 10 salad bar selections available to students before grape prices jumped, said Ken Llewellyn, director of nutritional services for the school district.

"They're unaffordable," Llewellyn said of grapes. "We are having to be very careful about what we're buying."

Rising food prices carry a special impact when you're serving 7,300 lunches a day, as does the Marysville district.

"I shop and shop and shop," Llewellyn said. "I take advantage of a lot of specials."

Food prices, increasing more than 4 percent in the Unites States last year, have hit schools here. The U.S. Department of Agriculture said the food cost climb is the largest since 1990 and that a similar increase is expected this year.

Wheatland High School, which serves up to 500 meals a day, has seen costs for a turkey rise $1 over the last three months to a price of $3.59 a pound.

The Yuba City Unified School District raised meal prices 25 to 50 cents at the start of the school year but doesn't expect another increase in the fall.

"I'm holding solid," said Nadene Haynes, food services director. "We're going to stay the same."

Schools in California face not only higher costs but also cuts in state funding by the governor.

Phyllis Bramson-Paul, director of the nutrition services division for the state Department of Education, said years of improving the nutrition of school meals by such efforts as farm-to-school produce and salad bars may be in jeopardy.

"This puts that whole effort in question," she said of higher food prices as state funding drops for schools.

Llewellyn said the Marysville school district is keeping its salad bars — minus, for now, the grapes — but shares Bramson-Paul's concerns about the future of healthy eating efforts in education.

Llewellyn said he's considering adding a whole-grain, whole-wheat pasta to school menus in the fall but its cost at about 22 cents a portion — three times the cost of standard pasta — may pose a challenge.

"That's the pasta I want to provide," he said. "Can we afford it?"

The nutritional services director said he's going to do everything he can to add the whole-grain pasta to Marysville district schools.

Kuulei Moreno, head chef at Wheatland High School, also worries about what will happen to the healthy eating emphasis at schools.

"I'm scared about it," Moreno said, adding that the high school won't lose its nutritional meals. "I'm not going to let it happen here."

Contact Appeal-Democrat reporter Ryan McCarthy at 749-4707 or rmccarthy@appeal-democrat.com