School Lunch Program

Under the National School Lunch Program, local school districts receive federal funds for lunches that meet the program's requirements for nutritious, well-balanced meals. Although these school districts have traditionally run their own school meals programs, several have contracted with private food service management companies to plan, prepare, and serve school meals. Also, some school districts have purchased brand-name fast foods to serve as part of their school meals or as a la carte items. This report (1) discusses the extent to which food authorities use food service companies to operate their school lunch program and the impact that the use of food service companies has had on the National School Lunch Program; (2) describes the terms and the conditions in the contracts between food authorities and food service companies; (3) discusses the extent to which fast foods and snack foods in vending machines are available in participating schools; and (4) describes the types, the brands, and the nutritional content of the fast foods most commonly offered.

GAO found that: (1) the number of food authorities participating in the school lunch program and contracting with FSMC has increased from 4 to 8 percent; (2) most food authorities use FSMC to reduce their budget deficit and increase revenue; (3) the advantages of using FSMC include paying lower costs for food, payroll, employee benefits, and administration; (4) schools with food service contracts have fewer students participating in school lunch programs than those schools not using FSMC; (5) more food service workers remain employed as a result of schools' contracting with FSMC; (6) food service contracts vary depending on the type of meal and the federal regulations governing the contracts; (7) most food service contracts require an annual fee, half stipulate a per-meal fee, and some stipulate both fees; (8) about one-half to two-thirds of FSMC contracts do not contain standard contractual provisions to ensure compliance with federal requirements; (9) the provisions most often omitted from the contracts are intended to ensure that the food authority maintains control of the school meals program; (10) the failure to include these provisions creates uncertainty regarding FSMC responsibilities and diminishes the food authority's ability to ensure that FSMC adheres to federal requirements; and (11) although the percentage of schools offering brand-name fast foods has increased, the number of items offered is limited.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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