Title: School lunch prices on the rise | Education | buffalonews.com
Headings: School lunch prices on the rise
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School lunch prices on the rise
Increasing costs
Closing the gap

Content: After years of using federal school-lunch dollars to keep prices low, districts have been required since 2011-12 to steadily increase the price of a paid school lunch to close the gap between what the government pays for a student meal and what a child pays. The federal law that required cafeterias to serve more fruits and vegetables also mandates that schools increase lunch prices by up to 10 cents a year until they close that gap. Many local school districts are imposing increases of a nickel or a dime this year to satisfy the federal requirement that lunch prices rise to meet government subsidies. That has pushed the average price of an elementary school lunch in Erie and Niagara counties to $1.82 – up 4.4 percent compared to a year ago. The average high school lunch will cost $2. But some school districts have found they need to ask families to pay even more than the federally mandated increases to make up for rising costs. “We can’t run in a deficit,” said Mary Brucz, food service director at Cheektowaga-Sloan, where the price of an elementary school lunch will increase 17 percent to $1.65 this year. “ So we had to come to a cost that wasn’t going to hurt our families but could still keep us afloat.” Increasing costs
Several factors affect the increased cafeteria expenses. Food prices are up.