The cafeteria is a critical part of any school, providing students with a convenient place to eat and hang out during lunch. Its goal is to provide nutritional foods to their students for an affordable price. But is the price really “convenient” for students? Numerous students and even staff have complained about the high costs of the mediocre foods served at North Park’s cafeteria. These high prices have discouraged students from purchasing school food, instead choosing to go out for more reasonably priced meals will begin to be the better choice. Even with the understanding that the cost of ingredients is increasing, the price is higher than we would like. However, when compared to other nearby restaurants, such as Pizzaville and Little Caesars, the price truly starts to stand out. “The food? It’s okay I guess, but the price, man. That stuff’s too expensive,” a student stated about the cafeteria food.
A lot of students share the misconception that the cafeteria is owned by the school, but the reality is that the cafeteria is not managed or even owned by the school. In fact our school has little influence on the cafeteria management. After talking to our school administration, we found out that our cafeteria is managed by a specialized food service company called Chartwells that works with schools to provide food for students. Chartwells is under a contract with the Peel District School Board to sell food in cafeterias across all schools in Peel. Chartwells supplies all the ingredients and menus that these cafeterias use. The cafeteria staff are not employees of Peel District School Board, but are hired and paid by Chartwells. In addition Chartwells receives all of the profits from the cafeterias. When students use cards, their payment log shows that the payment goes to Chartwells.
In a statement, Vice Principal Boutros said this when we asked about Chartwells: “They get to sell their foods here and what we get is the benefit of having convenient foods for our students.” The cafeteria is essentially a private third party vendor within the public school system. This means that the school gets nothing other than the rent from the cafeteria. In other words, the school is not benefiting when you buy expensive cafeteria food.
When we asked students what they knew about the ownership of the cafeteria, they were very surprised to learn about who actually profited from the cafeteria. “Wait, the school really gets nothing? Then what am I buying this stuff for?” one student commented.
“The food is a bit expensive but I thought that because it was going towards the school. I would still buy it to contribute to the school more. I don’t think I’ll buy here anymore since there’s no point to it now,” another student responded. So, this really goes back to our first question, is our convenience really worth the overpriced food?
THE NORTH STAR 