Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Dietitian Hatsuki Umemoto's heart skipped a beat when a schoolchild said, "You give us 'komatsuna' (Japanese mustard spinach) every day."

The 23-year-old woman in charge of coming up with the lunch menu at an elementary school in the Akasaka district in Minato Ward, Tokyo, has opted for inexpensive komatsuna to replace spinach and other vegetables that have risen in price.

Hit hard by soaring food costs, public school officials say they are struggling to provide a nutritious midday meal for their students.

Purchasing cheaper produce is not necessarily an option, given the importance attached to dietary education and a food-poisoning scandal earlier this year involving Chinese-made "gyoza" dumplings.

To cope with the problem, some municipalities have decided to come up with supplementary budgets.

In Tokyo last month, for example, Chuo Ward approved an additional sum of ¥7.9 million and Adachi Ward earmarked ¥37 million for school lunches.

A Chuo Ward official said the ward has been shifting from beef to pork and serving bean sprouts as its vegetable dish. However, there is only so much the ward can do, resulting in a tendency for menus to stay pretty much fixed.

Prices of many types of vegetables, bread and other wheat-based foods and dairy products have risen across the board since last year.

The situation has forced many schools to halve the number of days a month they offer noodles to two or three and use rice instead. They have also turned to low-priced fruit for dessert.

Minato Ward has started to allocate a budget for the purchase of organic vegetables, but Umemoto said she cannot easily buy the foods she wants boys and girls to eat because of the price.

She called school lunches a "great pleasure" for children.

Shinagawa Ward, Tokyo, will increase the price of lunches by ¥20 to ¥35 per meal in September, meaning they will run ¥210 to ¥245 at elementary schools and ¥300 at junior highs. The decision is considered unusual because it will take effect during the academic year.

"We are particular about using vegetables grown using low levels of agrochemicals. We'd like to maintain high-quality school lunches," a Shinagawa board of education official said.

A 40-year-old housewife in Shinagawa said the decision to hike school lunch prices is understandable in light of the mounting cost of ingredients.

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