Elmhurst Schools Want Food Firm To Improve Offerings

ELMHURST, IL – Elmhurst school officials are considering hiring a food management firm to improve meals.

Officials say many students throw away their food.

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In many places, school districts have outsourced their cafeterias to food service companies. But Elmhurst has employed its own cafeteria workers and apparently plans to continue doing so.

In a memo released Monday, Elmhurst District 205 said it would request bids from food management companies.

The memo states that the winning company would provide expertise in menu planning, food offerings and operations.

Meanwhile, District 205 would continue to employ cafeteria staff.

According to the memo, the district recently surveyed York High School students about the food program.

The memo said it incorporated the feedback into its request for bids to "help ensure that student preferences and priorities " are reflected in the program.

At the school board's finance committee meeting Wednesday, officials plan to share highlights of the survey. Patch has filed a public records request for the results.

In September, officials revealed they planned to overhaul the food program next year.

To make this happen, York would withdraw from the National School Lunch Program, which reimburses schools for providing low-income students with free and reduced-price meals.

The district would then absorb the costs of low-income students' meals. But that would be offset by increased income from students attracted by the greater offerings.

Now, about 650 York students, or 25 percent, get lunch in the cafeteria, which officials say is far lower than in other school systems.

According to the district, the national program's requirements constrain what schools can offer. For instance, portion sizes must remain the same from kindergarten to 12th grade, officials said.

If York leaves the national program, the district expects lunch participation to increase by 70 to 140 students. That increase, officials said, would offset the loss of $150,000 in federal money.

The district provided a list of suburban districts, mostly wealthy, that have already left the national program. Some of them, the district said, have lunch participation rates of 45 percent to 90 percent.