This law has actually been in effect since September 2010, it’s just that the government has allowed a one year phase-in period.  Given my background, I’ve had many discussions with our cafeteria manager over this past year.  She is actually quite proficient at jigging her recipes to meet the fat, sodium and fibre levels as required by the law.  What she cannot control are the processed foods that kids love to eat.

Ironically, most food experts talk about allowing kids to make healthy food choices - this law prevents that from occurring.  Our fryers (before they were removed) used trans-fat free oil for a decade before the law was implemented.  Students used to have to go past display cases full of fruit, yogurt, salads, sandwiches and so on, to get to the fries, burgers and pizza - there was real choice.  Now, there will only be healthy food - no choice.

How bad does it get?  Let’s say you want something as innocent as a bagel - the ONLY combination that is compliant is whole wheat with butter.  Anything else and you have to go to Timmy’s.  Oddly enough a Tim Hortons franchise opened up across the street from our school last year.  Kids want pizza?  They now go to Dominoes and Little Caesar’s just one block down the street.  Our hallways are strewn with pizza boxes after every lunch hour.  What healthy choices does Dominoes offer?  Burger and fries?  You guessed it - MacDonald’s is also not that far away.

Beyond the loss of revenue, this law has had several other negative side effects:  1) Lateness - we always had some kids late to class, now they are even later and come in carrying a coffee or Iced Cap from Timmy’s; 2) Injuries - high school kids are notoriously impatient and several have been injured crossing the four-lane street to get to Timmy’s.

Who’s going to benefit?  Private enterprise of course.  You guys have been lamenting the tough times in the private sector, heck get a few bucks together and open a fast food franchise near a school - you’ll make a mint.

Reduce the package size and increase the price to compensate for lost revenues. It still is cheaper to buy at the grocery store, compared to the vending machines.

Notice the vending company for Toronto schools. It stated in the article, “Toronto students will have a bevy of new beverages to choose from this fall, milk and juice included, after a small Rexdale company won the right to stock cold drink vending machines in public schools, beating out Pepsi and its archrival Coca-Cola.

Toronto District School Board trustees approved the deal with HealthyVendCanada, a five-year-old company, on Wednesday night.”

It implies a small company, locally owned.
HealthyVendCanada, is a lot more than small and locally own.

http://www.healthyvendcanada.com/index.htm

There was a good reason why this HealthyVend was selected.

“Healthy Vend Canada’s proposal was unique in that it is a profit-sharing model. After cost of product and operating costs are covered, the net profit (exclusive of taxes) would be shared between the TDSB, and Healthy Vend Canada.
•
Healthy Vend Canada’s proposal also allows some flexibility in product pricing.
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Healthy Vend Canada proposed the lowest overall product pricing of all the bidders.
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Healthy Vend Canada is willing to serve TDSB’s elementary schools whereas the other three bidders indicated that they would not be serving the elementary panel.
•
Healthy Vend Canada has a substantial product list compliant with PPM No. 150 that exceeds eighty (80) items (including vendible milk) and it continues to grow regularly as the beverage industry adapts to the new legislation”

http://www.tdsb.on.ca/boardroom/bd_agenda/uploads/Jun_15_2011/Administration__Finance_and_Accountability_Committee/110615_Cold_Beverage_1747.pdf

A bottle of water will still be $1.00

Thanks Nancy, I forgot about the vending machines.  If kids want sugared pop, juice or Gatorade, or chips, chocolate and candy - they don’t even have to cross the street, there is a Mac’s just outside the school yard.  Kids will vote with their feet. It’s ironic that in our rural board, virtually none of our schools with cafeterias are free from competition from the unregulated private sector.

you simply can NOT legislate freedom of choice. Like it or not we still operate in a free market economy.

Instead of imposing a sweeping legislation on the whole province why not let individual school communities decide things like this for themselves?

If the glut by school boards and school authorities to fundraise were not in play I doubt that this would be an issue.

We live in Canada not Cuba - someone should remind the “education” Premier of that little fact. Also, instead of expending so much focus and energy on issues like this and FLICK-OFF wouldn’t it be better to see the focus be on supporting families and students instead of “the blob”....which ultimately the bottom-line is eventually what it all comes down to.

Ever since schools got into the business making a profit on food, rentals, etc., the variety of foods is far less, and the price just keeps going up. Throw in the regulations, such as the bans for bottle water, and junk food in other public places, and the other health rules, the schools are force to create rules to promote the use of the school’s vending machines and cafeteria.

Whatever happen to the cafeterias and vending machines of the 60s and 70s? All non-profit, inexpensive meals, hot meals such as meat loaf, and if not one can always have a hotdog. In my day, meat loaf day was the most popular. Had for 75 cents including a dessert. From time to time, there was hot roast beef or turkey sandwiches, with or without gravy.

Wayne you mentioned a bagel, and does that come with cream cheese?  Or is that one of the banned foods?  Between milk and cheese products, these foods are becoming quite pricey. And the cost must have an reaction from the parents and the kids, where they are using their feet to go elsewhere, or brown bagging it. Next rule will be to give students detention for carrying banned food products in their bags, or on their person. I guess in your school, the janitor will be picking up a lot more pizza boxes, and other such banned foods. Than the new rule will come, and students will just find another way of working around the new rule, by arriving late, eating in places like the washrooms, or as we call it down here, eating while running back to the school. The leftovers are thrown in the nearest green garbage container, for the town crew to pick up. But down our way, being late has consequences and there is no such thing as banned food,  Unless, you count the rule of no eating in the classroom….........

You’re right Nancy - too much fat in cream cheese - has to be butter.  As for the other types of bagels, I believe it has to be whole wheat because of the fibre.  As I said, our manager is really inventive.  Without telling the students, she changed her cheese cake recipe to make it compliant - mixing jogurt to the cream cheese to lower fat, and adding bran to the base to increase fibre.

I agree with you, Chuck - there needs to be more local control.  Luckily, schools are allowed 10 non-compliant days/sales (woo hoo!).  Principals have to submit a list of these to the Ministry.  You should be given a list of those days in your school newsletter either now, or in September.  Principals should be wise enough to draw up this list with input from staff and parents.  Wait, what am I saying?   It would have been better if the law had said x% of sales must be compliant, and the rest non-compliant if that is what the school were to decide - but you know our premier.

very very few kids had money to spend on vending machines and even were required to stay for lunch in the ‘60s or ‘70s - in my region only those kids who were bused stayed for lunch - bused students had to live 2.5 miles away - everyone else had to either go home or go uptown to one of the few restaurants in our small town, OR fill up on junk from the variety store.

No elementary kids in those days stayed for lunch. If parents worked and couldn’t be home other arrangements were made with neighbours, relatives, etc.

Hotdog days every month? Nope. It was the quest for $$$ that saw my own kids have a “special” hotdog lunch ever month.  I once volunteered at the school when I had a day off at one of these and it was the LAST time my kids attended. Students were made to eat on the gym floor AND on the day that I was there the mum who was in charge of cooking the hotdogs had them boiling in the water still in the packages - she had no clue how to cook them….until I told her that they needed to be removed from the package.

Also, for the bused kids they were asked specifically to have a prepared lunch, but if they were unable to have a bagged lunch they could get soup and very, VERY basic stuff from the cafeteria…..few choices but it was to augment or compliment the bag lunches more than it was to offer full-catered meals to students every day.

I remember distinctly that it was a local decision between parents, and school board at the time that kept vending machines OUT of our school even when other schools had them.

I also remember taking one of my kids to sports tournament north of Belleville Ontario and was stunned that not only did they have a whole line of vending machines (at least 6) but they also had one of those arcade-type video games in their cafeteria.

Wayne - simply ridiculous!

Wow Chuck, my experience in the 60s and 70s totally different, The cafeteria was stocked well, and we never had any kind of fundraisers such as hot dog days. I never experience hot dog days until I had children. I do think that the business association of our community supported the cafeteria including offering deep discounts on food stocks. We had everything, including salads, oranges, bananas, apples, pears, and cut vegetables. As for vending machines, it was a choice of 3 to 4 different pops, in a paper cup. I remembered about once a month, I spent 50 cents more for the extra rush of 8 ozs of really cold cold coke. I can still taste it in my mouth.

Since the 90s, school cafeterias have gone down-hill, and that is if a school has one. Or otherwise as you stated, they are force to eat lunch on the gym floor. My children never experience that one, but I do know of others that have. Whatever happen to eating lunch at your desk?  Don’t tell me, unions and their contracts, and the bit about not doing recess and lunch hours.

As for busing, in my day it was 1.8 km, and virtually all students live further than the 1.8 km, because the high school was plunk down in the middle of nowhere, with only a medical clinic and a small drug store on the other side of the highway. Hence the well-stocked cafeteria, and reasonable price food, plus one could run a credit tab if you did not have any money on you.

The ministry should really stay out of it, since many of the solutions are coming from the big cities, that usually are hard to implement in smaller rural/urban mix communities.