A University of Minnesota study has found that school lunch sales don't decline when healthier meals are served, and that more nutritious lunches don't have to cost more to produce. Published in the December issue of the Review of Agricultural Economics, the study analyzed five years of data at 330 Minnesota public school districts and found that schools serving the healthiest lunches did not see a falloff in participation.
It also concluded that while serving healthier meals increases labor costs, those are more than offset by lower food costs for healthy ingredients. The reason many districts don’t realize those savings, the authors say, is because they have failed to upgrade their kitchen operations and train their staffs to prepare healthier menu choices.