Bringing whole grains into schools is not a simple matter of saying, “Let’s do it.” The Whole Grains Council is working with schools and with food manufacturers to overcome barriers like these:
Vendors charge more for whole grains – or won’t bid.
One school district reported being quoted 15¢ for a whole grain hamburger bun – and 6¢ for a refined-flour bun. Especially for smaller districts, the lack of price parity is a huge obstacle. Although some of the nation’s largest districts feel that their size helps them get whole grain products for a price close to that of refined foods, even these districts often have trouble finding the whole grains they need and want, at any price. It’s not unusual to get NO bidders on whole grain products.
Cooking is not done in many schools.
Only about half of today’s schools cook onsite; many schools are only equipped to thaw and reheat foods. School kitchens often do not have dishwashers or exhaust hoods, for instance, limiting the preparation that could be done onsite even if labor costs and lack of staff training could be overcome. This means heat-and-serve whole grain products must be made available.
Free commodities include very few whole grains.
Schools count on government commodity programs to stretch their budgets. For school year ‘07, only 9 of 45 grain choices on the School Foods Commodity List were whole grain – a far cry from MyPyramid’s call to “make half your grains whole grains.”
Schools think kids won’t eat whole grains
Healthy food doesn’t do kids any good if they don’t eat it. Many schools worry that unfamiliar foods will end up in the trash can. But this may be more perception than reality; schools are often surprised to find that kids take well to good quality whole grain foods.
Existing contracts may not include many whole grains.
An estimated 25% of school districts nationwide outsource menu planning, food purchasing and preparation to a food-service provider. The remaining self-operated districts may have long-term agreements with distributors for certain categories of products. In both cases, the wholegrain choices easily available to these schools may be limited to those offered within the contract. Fortunately, some leading food-service providers and distributors are working hard to include more whole grain options.
No one has previously organized a campaign for whole grains.
There have been, before now, no whole grains industry organizations working with schools to aggressively promote school feeding program officials to increase whole grain foods in schools. The Whole Grains Council is working to make a difference.