Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Wiesbaden and School Lunches

An American has a certain view of school lunches.  It's safe to say that almost everyone it's lousy food, and except for being reasonable on costs.....no one really cares in the US to eat a school lunch.

Up until recently here in the schools of Wiesbaden....it was mostly the same way.  In fact, parents finally got pretty testy and vocal.  So the catering service that operated in four schools.....just simply walked away from the contract.  The complaints were helping them, and they just couldn't improve on the meal with the cost factor laid into the system.

School lunches in Wiesbaden run around 4.18 Euro ($4.8 roughly ) for students and 4.50 ($5.30 roughly) Euro for teachers. A fair chunk of money for a lousy meal.

So the new catering service walked in.  Their strategy?  They found a source for cheaper and better vegetables and fruit.  The salad buffet episode improved overnight.  Students took note of this....as strange as it sounds.

The fear?  Well.....this isn't exactly a long-term contract.  The new guy may be eating up profits to some degree, in hopes of the next contract being a bit more profitable....meaning a rise in the cost of each meal.  There's some feeling that they may have to revert back to a "bad" catering deal....only because of the cost factor.

In the end, it's pretty much the same deal as in the US.  You can provide a four-star lunch for school kids that they would eat.....but at what cost?  So you accept a cheaper meal with half the students saying "no" to it.

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