How Giant Food Corporations Are Giving Kickbacks to Schools to Get Their Products on Kids' Trays

[marmar]

via AlterNet:



Grist.org / By Ed Bruske

How Giant Food Corporations Are Giving Kickbacks to Schools to Get Their Products on Kids' Trays
The reason why kids are served sugary cereals, Pop-Tarts, Otis Spunkmeyer muffins, and flavored milk that has nearly as much sugar as Coke or Mountain Dew.

July 17, 2010 |


D.C. Public Schools in the last two years have taken in more than $1 million in corporate rebates -- referred to by some as "kickbacks" -- paid by giant food manufacturers as an inducement to place their brands on kids' cafeteria trays at school.

Documents I obtained through the Freedom of Information Act show that Chartwells, the company hired by D.C. Schools to provide food services at 122 schools across the city, through February of this year had declared $1,076,738 in rebates it received since its contract began in the fall of 2008. That represents 5 percent of the $18.7 million in purchases Chartwells billed the school system during that period. Under federal law, Chartwells is required to credit D.C. schools for any rebates it receives.

Food manufacturers use the rebates as an incentive to entice purchasing agents to buy certain products over others for school meals. Rebates sometimes are referred to as "kickbacks" because powerful food service companies such as Chartwells expect to receive them, much the way grocers expect manufacturers to pay to have their goods displayed prominently on supermarket shelves.

Critics charge that the rebates -- also referred to as "volume discounts" or "buy backs" -- act as a tool in the campaign to imprint processed and often sugary food brands in the minds of young children. Rebates help explain why kids in D.C. schools routinely are served sugary cereals such as Kellogg's Apple Jacks and snacks like Kellogg's Pop-Tarts, Otis Spunkmeyer muffins, Pepperidge Farm Giant Goldfish Grahams, and flavored milk from Cloverland Dairy that has nearly as much sugar as Coke or Mountain Dew.

It could not be immediately determined from the documents which manufacturers paid the rebates to D.C. Schools or in what amounts. Under U.S. Department of Agriculture rules governing the federally-subsidized school meals program, food service providers such as Chartwells are required to itemize the rebates they receive only when schools ask them to do so. Otherwise, the rebates appear simply as a lump-sum line item on the monthly invoices Chartwells submits to D.C. Public Schools for reimbursement. ................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/food/147557/how_giant_food_corporations_are_giving_kickbacks_to_schools_to_get_their_products_on_kids%27_trays_/

[donco6]

1. I am constantly barraged by ads from these places, urging me to outsource.

Chartwells, Sodexho, Aramark - they're at all the conferences, all the trade fairs. They call my board members directly to pressure them to make the change. I don't want to turn my employees over to these vultures. But I may not be given a choice.

[HockeyMom]

2. What the kids eat at home plays a major role

in what they will eat at school. I have worked in the schools with children from all different backgrounds. Yes, they do serve these cereals for breakfast and the majority of the kids eat this.

However, I now work in a Title 1 school (free breakfast, some free lunch) where the majority of kids are from Mexican or Haitian immigrant families. These kids don't eat these things at home, and won't eat them at school. They tend to just drink the white milk, juice, and eat fresh fruits, such as apples, bananas, or oranges, at breakfast.

Even lunch is different. Actually, in this Title 1 school they don't even serve what the other schools in the district do. They serve tacos, quesadillas, and a lot of rice and black beans. Fresh fruit is served at lunch also and these kids will eat this, instead of cookies or cake which is served also.

Again, it's what the kids are used to at home that makes all the difference.