Moving Beyond Square Pizza
Lots of Quicksies around here started the new school year yesterday. And as the kids go back, the debate goes on about what public schools ought to serve for lunch. Ten years ago, school lunches were the vast, unexplored frontier to the nation's largest quick-serve chains, and today there are rumblings again in the industry about the promises of the school lunch market.
Me, I didn't like it, and I had trouble at the time publishing stories about how quick-serve companies could exploit (take that word as positively or negatively as you'd like) the school lunch market. Now that I have a small child, I feel even more strongly about it.
Of course, that position assumes that quick-serve meals are inherently bad, and that is less the case now than ten years ago. What if Panera put its Panera Kids menu, with organic and all-natural ingredients and no trans fats, into schools? Good by me. Or how about Subway's FreshFit menu of sandwiches and sides for kids? I could be happy with Baby A's school serving that.
Here's a pretty balanced look at U.S. school lunch reform efforts. And take a look at the efforts of Two Angry Moms, who have made a movie and started a movement to better U.S. school lunches. And the TreeHugger site has visited this topic regularly.
These reform efforts (and the underlying problems) aren't particular to the United States. Take, for instance, celebrity chef Jamie Oliver's attempts to better the lunch programs in England, which have met with mixed success.
As your Quicksies head back to school, is the lunch program on you mind? How would you feel if a quick-serve chain won the rights to run your local schools' lunch programs? What standards would you want them to adhere to?
Comments
Just thought of one more thing: Could a Panera or Subway kids' menu provide enough variety? There are only about four choices on each one--far from enough to fill the twenty or so school days each month.
I'd need to see how a company would expand its menu and provide variety--not just for nutritional needs but for fun and expanding horizons and tastes--before I could approve.
You?
- QS Mama / Lea
Posted by: QSMama / Lea | July 26, 2007 11:30 AM