Many New Prairie students were outraged when they received an email stating that they have to pay to have ranch dressing with their meal. Many students just wanted to know the reasoning behind having to buy ranch.
Mike Hale, the lunch director, explained that when planning out meals, he has to count calories in a meal.
“We follow regulations that are set by the USDA. That’s how we do it. We have to follow federal rules and regulations, and we can’t dance around it. The minimum and maximum calories I’m allowed to serve is between 750 and 850,” said Mr. Hale.
By having to follow a certain amount of calories, it made it difficult for Mr. Hale to include ranch in the meal.
“When I was giving you a ranch I have to count those calories into your meal, and when you took 400 pizzas against the amount of ranch that was going out, against the vegetable that was set that day, and the milk that was set that day we were shooting over the calorie limit,” said Hale.
Since Hale couldn’t include the ranch in the meal anymore, he still wanted students to have access to it. His solution was making it a cart item. A cart item is something like chips or cookies, that is sold separately than the meal.
“By law, I have to make that adjustment, and the only way to keep the ranch was to sell it on the cart,” said Hale
The cost of the ranch cups are $0.25 cents each. He decided on this price based on the overall cost of the ranch.
Even though students have to buy ranch, they do not have to buy other condiments. This is strictly because ranch is more calories than other condiments.
“If I’m selling chicken sandwiches and I take the amount of barbecue sauces that were taken that day, and put them against the amount of chicken sandwiches that were served that day, then base that off of how you calculate calories for that day, we never had an issue. With the Smart Mouth Pizzas I can’t just count a pizza and a ranch. I have to include a full meal, and we’re always over,” said Hale.
The serving sizes of meals are all determined based on calories and serving sizes of fruits and vegetables.
“The USDA sets the serving sizes,” said Hale.
There is a set amount of fruits and vegetables that must be served everyday, but Hale allows us to take as many fruits and vegetables that we want without charging us.
“We have our policy here that I allow you to take as many fruits and vegetables as you want,” said Hale.
Surprisingly, the ranch isn’t the only thing that has gone up this year. Everything except the milk went up at the beginning of the year.
“All meals went up $0.10, because we put it into a calculator and the USDA tells you if you are charging enough,” said Hale.
After Christmas break the cart items also went up.
“When it comes to cart items there is a rule that says we cannot make more money on cart items than meals because we are here to sell meals to kids so they can have a balanced day,” said Hale.
Hale said the reason the cart prices fluctuate is because of the supply and demand chain.
“For example our delivery trucks and stuff start charging us more as things are charging us more, then we have to bring stuff up,” said Hale.