Comparison of Costs between School and Packed Lunches

• Published in: Journal of child nutrition & management Vol. 44; no. 1
• Main Authors: O'Keefe, Keely R, Serrano, Elena L, Davis, George C, Cole, D. Austin, Frisard, Madlyn I, Farris, Alisha R
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: School Nutrition Association 2020
• Subjects: Costs; Food; Kindergarten; Lunch Programs; Nutrition; Parents; Preschool Children; Preschool Education; Time; Virginia
• ISSN: 1559-5676

Purpose/Objectives: Although meals offered through the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) have been found to be of higher dietary quality than packed lunches, roughly 40% of students bring packed lunches for a variety of reasons, including cost. The purpose of this study was to explore costs, including time, of NSLP and packed lunches. Methods: Data from the lunches of 1,289 pre-kindergarten and kindergarten students enrolled in three schools in southwest Virginia were used for this study, and categorized as homemade packed lunches, convenience packed lunches, replicated school lunches, and NSLP lunches. Each lunch was assigned a food cost based on retail purchase of lunch contents. Each lunch was also assigned a time cost by evaluating the amount of time to prepare each lunch, with a monetary value for labor computed. A full-cost for each lunch was determined by combining food cost and time cost. Nonparametric tests were used to compare the food cost, time cost, and the full cost of the meals. Medians were computed and compared due to outliers in the data. Descriptive statistics were used to calculate the median food cost of sugar-sweetened beverages and desserts in packed lunches. Results: Statistically significant differences in median food costs were found between homemade packed lunches ($1.55) and replicated school lunches ($2.11), convenience packed lunches ($2.12), and NSLP lunches ($2.15). The homemade packed lunch provided a statistically significant reduction in food cost compared to NSLP. When incorporating preparation time (full cost), all one-sided pairwise comparisons of lunch cost were found to be statistically significant (p-values less than 0.0001) in terms of their median values: NSLP ($2.15), convenience packed lunches ($2.56), homemade packed lunches ($2.92), and replicated school lunches ($11.32). Seventy-six percent (414 of 545) of packed lunches contained sugar-sweetened beverages and/or dessert food items, accounting for one-fifth (median of 20.07%) of the food cost of all observed packed lunches. Applications to Child Nutrition Professionals: When time is computed as part of the total cost of NSLP versus packed lunch options, including homemade packed lunches, replicated school meals, and convenience lunch options, the NSLP is the least expensive choice. In conjunction with the nutritional benefits of the NSLP, time-cost data may be used to develop interventions or campaigns on the benefits of participating in the NLSP.