Establishing Central School Lunch Kitchens in Urban Areas: Problems and Costs

Excerpts from the report Preface: The rapid and continuing expansion of the National School Lunch Program has focused the attention of the Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry and the U. S. Department of Agriculture on a problem concerning expansion: How to provide nutritionally adequate noonday lunches under the Program to children in older urban schools where installation of kitchen facilities is not feasible. More than 1.5 million children in metropolitan public schools and almost as many in private schools do not have access to school lunches. Many of these children are from older, congested, low-income neighborhoods where nutritional benefits from expansion of the Program might be greatest. A feasible approach to this problem involves central preparation and distribution of food to individual schools. Therefore, an intensive study was initiated of food service operations in eight diverse school systems utilizing central kitchens. Four forms of Type A lunches meeting Program nutritional requirements were selected for study--plate lunches, tray pack, soup and sandwich, and packaged lunches. This report summarizes information from these operating lunch programs. It was developed to help lunch program supervisors and others evaluate the central kitchen concept in expanding the lunch program to older schools in low-income neighborhoods. It should aid preliminary planning prior to designs for specific individual operations.