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School Lunch for the Obamas (And How We Can Make Public School Meals Just as Good)

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Deborah Lehmann is an editor of School Lunch Talk, a blog about school food. She is currently studying economics and public policy at Brown University.

Ever wonder what the Obama daughters eat for school lunch? It’s a far cry from the packaged burritos and the slices of frozen pizza served in most public school cafeterias. Students at Sidwell Friends eat lemon herb baked chicken, tuscan white bean soup, local arugula and herb salad and shrimp creole. One of the favorite entrees across the board is pesto pasta with grilled chicken and vegetables.

I’ve been trying to understand for a while why that menu is so strikingly different from the ones in public schools across the country. Is it because Sidwell is a private school? Is it because the
meal program there has a bigger budget? Is it because Sasha, Malia and other students at Sidwell come from families that prioritize good food and pay attention to health?

I had an opportunity last week to talk to Leslie Phillips, the director of business development for Meriwhether Godsey, which runs school lunch at Sidwell and 36 other schools on the East coast. The answer, she said, is none of those. “It’s not public versus private,” Phillips told me. “It’s all-inclusive versus getting kids to buy.”

In many — but not all — private schools, school lunch is mandatory (or, as Phillips likes to say, “all-inclusive.”) All students pay for meals upfront as part of their tuition, and they’re covered for the year. In these schools, the menu is “in the hands of the adults,” Phillips said. Of course, they take into account what kids like to eat and strive to offer a variety of foods. But if they don’t want to sell chips or French fries, they don’t have to.

In other private schools, cafeterias are more like restaurants (and public school lunchrooms, for that matter). Students either pay for their food directly each day, or the management company charges the school for whatever the child eats each day. In either case, students become customers, and cafeterias need to bring in the customer to bring in the revenue.

In public schools, food service directors say they have to offer kid-friendly foods like chicken nuggets and pizza because otherwise students won’t buy lunch. Whether the revenue they receive comes from student dollars or federal reimbursements, it is directly linked to the number of meals they serve, so maximizing participation is critical.

While Sidwell doesn’t have that problem, Phillips said it’s not unique to public schools. “We have the same struggles at private schools that do not have an all-inclusive program,” she told me. In a retail setting, “you’re really stuck between the devil and the deep blue sea,” Phillips said. ”You want to provide something healthful, but you also want to provide something that 13-year-old will buy. You’re looking at a virtual wallet and you want them to open it.” It’s hard to imagine an a la carte operation that doesn’t have a bag of chips on it, she added. “If we were all-inclusive in that school, we wouldn’t have a rack of chips. It wouldn’t be an option.”

The difference is simple. If you’re running a retail environment, you’re worried about the bottom line more than anything else, and your customers get the last word. To lure them into the lunchroom, you have to offer foods that they know and like. But if you’ve already collected the money upfront, you have some leeway. You can offer new dishes and expose students to new foods. “We didn’t put that pesto pasta on our menu because kids came in and asked for it,” said Robin Menard, the director of dining services for Meriwhether Godsey at Sidwell. “But we’ve kept it on our menu because it’s so popular.” Same with the chilled melon soup and the quinoa salad. “Most kids had never had or seen quinoa,” she said. “That’s one of the reasons we put it on the menu.” If Sidwell were a retail environment, she may have still offered quinoa. But she would have made only a few portions, and she would have offered it along with the bestselling entrees and chips that drive sales.

If we want the National School Lunch Program to dish out meals that are as healthy as balanced as the ones the Obama daughters eat every day, we’re going to have to make some structural changes. Increasing federal funding is important, but it doesn’t change the incentives for cafeterias. The real solution lies in moving the program away from a retail model so directors can focus on lunch, not lunch money.