How Brands Like Domino’s Profit From School Lunch

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Roughly 30 million kids in the U.S. eat school lunch every day, and “Big Food” companies have a pretty big stake in what makes it on kids’ trays. It starts with federal money, but before USDA funding makes it to cafeterias, many school districts order from food giants like Tyson and PepsiCo who grab a big slice of the school lunch pie.

We hear a lot about school lunches in America and the food itself doesn’t always get the best reputation. From Hollywood depictions to real life memories, the school cafeteria is a quintessential part of American culture.

Who decides what food gets put on the tray? And how come one school serves this on a $1.25 budget, while another serves this? Why are teachers working at McDonald’s for a night? And how does a slice of Domino’s pizza meet USDA guidelines?

Those are all loaded questions with complicated answers, but if you really boil it down the answer is money. Lots and lots of money.

The billion lunches that get doled out in school cafeterias every year make up a multibillion dollar industry that makes sure millions of kids are fed. It starts with federal money but on its way to cafeterias, school districts have to order the meals and food giants grab a big slice of the school lunch pie.
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How Brands Like Domino’s Profit From School Lunch

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47 COMMENTS

  1. Oh man..even a poor nation like mine (India) has a mandatory public school lunch program which is free for everyone. Even though I can't vouch for the quality or nutritional value of those meals, I can say one thing for sure. They aren't made to make big corporations money. Yes, food contractors exist, and yes, they cut costs and make money, but it mostly is a small scale operation and a local one. Not a multi-national, multi-billion dollar company profiting off of feeding unhealthy meals to children. Most schools and districts, even local politicians take their lunch programs very prestigiously and prepare mostly hygienic and healthy, fresh meals. There is something systematically wrong when these kinds of topics are being dealt in such a capitalist way, where the answer to whether a school meal should include healthy meal or not is such an obvious answer!

  2. School lunch in Springfield MA it’s disgusting I have to make lunch for my son every day.kids don’t want this at all . I use to work at McDonald’s and all the parents use to come thru saying their kids didn’t want the lunch from school everything it’s frozen , why can’t they cook because the government has a deal that cost the same to pay cook’s

  3. Damn it’s so crazy how government subsidies towards corporations would end in a poor outcome for the general population. I’m shocked honestly

  4. the factor quite simple' Brown fat' is more important than anything there is one country that has more brown fat than any of those country in the world they have 999 9% Brown fart and if you eat what they eat you'll have it too another fact it's been scientifically studied and everything else the Romans knew it and anybody that eats what they and once you eat the stuff they ate it will stay on your body the rest of your life you won't lose it. b The other factor is this here in the United States of America the pesticides but they spray will give an earthworm seizures, the facts are the only thing that it doesn't affect is a bee that's the only insect on the planet but it doesn't affect every other insect it affects horribly, it causes inflammation out there ying yang and that's why you have the health problems that you do it's 'toxic', so unless you are taking things to get rid of inflammation and your body your body is going to be inflamed and is going to cause you to gain weight that is just a natural symptom oh being exposed to the toxins of the environment, that you're living in and yes if you're avoiding as much toxins as you possibly can you're better off, and you're better off having a full reverse addnosis system on your water to remove the chemicals from it otherwise you're being exposed to chemicals and your water because you don't need to be drinking and that's just the fact the matter, and then you need to be adding your water natural elements so that you are getting what you need to your drinking water, no one should be bathing and chlorine as it is a thing that can make you stink that's just a fact, is not natural even birds will wait and a bird bath look at them they do not go into the water they wait outside when you put them outside they wait until the chlorine is dissipated before they will land in bird bath they wait until the chlorine is dissipated by the sun, that's nature at work. People need to start using their minds, because everyone has a brain it's an organ develop your minds people. It takes precisely 7 hours the sun do they purify water now that doesn't mean that it's going to purify everything out of it, be my guess and do your own research on it.

  5. You're skipping one thing about this whole thing, the major reason that school lunches were given out was because of wartime and the reason that it was done was that they were given a lunch to promote health to have healthy warriors and that's the reason they were given a healthy lunch it was adequate, the problem is that now they're not giving a healthy lunch that provides to make healthy warriors that can be combat of in the field of War and that is the issue.

  6. Still remember the pasta with "cheese" sauce that just looked like they added a cheese block to the pasta pot WITH the water, So the sauce was 60% water and 40% cheese.

    And the "healthy" sides were always tossed, while the teachers and administrators said we needed to eat them…. yeah, like they also ate the stalle carrots and soggy broccoli, and the sometimes mashed potatoes that was flooded with milk and piece of hard potatoes.

  7. Kids are fat because they are lazy today. They sit in front of computer screens, cell phones and tech pads. Active kids need calories. Why are we restricting calories to active kids.

  8. School lunch were delicious in the 1980s and 1990s. Now their disgusting because Mrs Obama introduced a program that limited what school can serve. Students were eating grass for school lunches. Whole milk was banned at that time.

  9. I would've loved to get Dominos for lunch the pizza I got at school was the grossest pizza I've ever tasted. Never really ate school lunch just waited to eat till after school. In high school they didn't make lunch you had to go out to buy some, I ate fast food nearly everyday lol.

  10. Our high school cafeteria was basically a restaurant…
    They served breakfast and lunch, and the food is so good even the town workers go to the high school for breakfast every day…
    And this was back in the 90's….
    You could walk into the cafe at almost any time (they closed the kitchen for half an hour between breakfast and lunch to changeover from breakfast to lunch, but literally any other time of the day you could walk in and order any breakfast item during the breakfast hours or any lunch/dinner type item after 11:00 a.m.
    I still crave THIER hash browns and breakfast sandwiches! No restaurant compares to the bacon egg & cheese sandwiches our lunchladies made for us…. Double egg, double bacon, triple cheese, for $2?! And coffee or hot chocolate or a selection of juices (or whatever bottled water or soda from the machine)
    All different flavors of bagels and all different types of bread rolls, we had a bagel slicer and a bagel toaster… What school cafeteria is so good that the towns utility workers actually go there for breakfast and lunch every single day? Portland High School in little 'ol Portland CT….

  11. I’m from a small Idaho rural community. Our school did, and still does, make rolls and buns from scratch from whole wheat flour. They do an incredible job. No commercialization.

  12. The government needs to look at their US territory of Puerto Rico . Paul Rico has the biggest school system in the entire US country and barely wastes food. In Puerto Rico lunch ladies come every morning to every single classroom and buy a raise of hands count how many kids are planning to eat and how many kids are decided not to eat and have food from home and then they by hand prepare fresh food daily Amount of children and rarely have any leftovers to throw out they serve food in metal trays and utensils to help with trash& they get washed & sanitize daily. For lunch we get rice chicken beans, fresh cut fruit and veggies. Fresh cooked pastas ect. And for breakfast they make a normal amount right before kids come to school because obviously there is no students to count one by one for breakfast they make fresh scrambled eggs, fresh pancakes, oatmeal etc. the US needs to really look at there territory & actually take notes.

  13. The problem is that the goverment can't do a parent's job. You can't FORCE children to want to eat vegetables, they have to be raised to eat vegetables. If all a kid is eating at home is chicken nuggets and junk food, they aren't going to choose vegetables when they go to school.

  14. Feeding kids junk food filled with ingredients you can’t pronounce are draining healthcare, not learning effectively, gym class doesn’t exist anymore…if you can, make your kids lunch, or help them make it. If you wouldn’t feed it to them at home (or if delivery pizza is a treat) don’t let them eat this junk that is poisoning them everyday. Talk to your school board, local legislatures, and state/national legislatures…your elected representatives…about the food quality…this is our future…and our today…this has been going on for decades.

  15. When I was a kid in 1947 we had hot lunch once a week. The rest of the time we brought our own. It was made by women who lived in town and volunteered their time. We got served homemade chili con carne, spaghetti, meatloaf with mashed potatoes, and sometimes homemade pizza, and a host of other homemade meals. This was before corporations took over the country. Funny thing everyone was thin and healthy back then. It is sad how politicians let big corporations destroy our health, our children, and our small businesses.

  16. As a south african i can say for sure that our government outlined school nutrition program FREE FOOD looks a lot better than any of those paid lunches to be honest and we dont pay for anything at school and we have computers
    Printers
    Uniform
    Projector
    Smart board
    And extra mural

  17. unpopular opinion: schools should mind their business about children's diet, make a proper menu with the ingredients, and sell appetizing food and real burgers instead of that blueberry crap because school is about education, not your lifestyle

  18. The school lunch was so bad at the school I went to some kids would just throw it away. It's unfortunate how it's turned into mass produced garbage instead of made from scratch meals. Lunch should be something for kids to look forward to, but not these days…

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