Schools rethink vending-machine fare But some school officials fret about potential loss of junk-food income By Jamie Vaznis, Globe Staff, 3/17/2004
The 16-year-old junior slips a dollar into the school's newest vending machine and retrieves a bottle of chocolate soymilk. "Most kids think soy and go ew, but it [tastes] nice going down," said Katsetos, a Toll Gate baseball player who never drank soymilk until the school installed the vending machine last fall. After spending nearly a decade boosting the healthfulness of cafeteria lunches, public schools are taking on the last frontier in school nutrition: the vending machine. In some cases, school leaders are replacing some junk food items with healthier choices. In other schools, such as Toll Gate High and two other Rhode Island high schools, they are adding vending machines stocked exclusively with all-natural or organic food as part of an experiment with a New Hampshire health food company. Tomorrow, schools in six Massachusetts communities -- Billerica, Danvers, Gloucester, Natick, Wilmington, and Woburn -- join the effort. In the future, however, health-food vending machines could become the standard for schools in Massachusetts or even across the nation. Congress and the Legislature will consider bills this year to ban sale of junk food in schools, at least during school hours, and the Boston City Council passed a resolution earlier this month urging the School Committee to impose a similar ban. The committee, which was already working on a change, could propose a policy by the end of this month that would set nutritional standards for snacks sold in school vending machines, cafeterias, and stores. But most schools are not prohibiting the sale of junk food on campus. School officials say they care about students' health, but have to cope with an economic reality. Potato chips and candy bars sell better than dried fruit and soy nuts, and schools make tens of thousands of dollars from vending sales, money that supports sports and other programs. Machines with healthier assortments offer items such as string cheese, pita chips, organic yogurt, soy nuts, dried fruit, and carrots and dip. To entice students to buy the products, schools sell the items at about the same price as the candy bars and potato chips in the traditional vending machines. Even then, it is not always an easy sell. At Gloucester High yesterday, students sampled some of the new snacks during a free taste test. Ariel Sargent spit a mouthful of barbecue-flavored soy chips into a garbage can. "It's gross," said the 14-year-old freshman. "It kind of tasted like styrofoam." Another freshman, Paul Budrow Jr., wouldn't even try the stuff. He bolted directly to a row of vending machines and bought a bag of corn chips. "I already know this stuff tastes good," he said. Still, other students swarmed the free sample table organized by the all-natural yogurt maker Stonyfield Farm of Londonderry, N.H. Several of the items students recognized, such as the pita chips, the drinkable yogurts, and the Pirate's Booty, a corn and rice cheese puff that is marketed as a healthy alternative to Jax cheese curls. Drinking a raspberry-flavored yogurt, 16-year-old Christina Clayton said, "This is really good. We should have more vending machines like this." Many school administrators, teachers, and health advocates believe that stocking vending machines with candies is hypocritical; in classes, students learn the importance of a healthy diet, but at the schools' very profitable vending machines, they are sold junk food. "We need to present some healthier options to kids," said Thomas Powers, the food service director for the Danvers school district, which recently began removing less healthy food items from vending machines. "For years, we have been turning a blind eye to the snacks we sell because it's a big part of our business." Madeline Perreault, Toll Gate High's principal, advocates healthier vending, but said her school's dozen or so vending machines generate thousands of dollars in profits that pay for tournament banners, cheerleading uniforms, teacher workshops, field trips, and much more. Schools also receive lucrative bonuses worth several thousand dollars when they sign contracts with a distributor of soda or other products. "I'd hate to lose that source of revenue," Perreault said. "It pays for all the things you like to do in a school that you can't always budget for." Of the healthy-food vending machine, she said, "I can't say it's a huge moneymaker." Gary Hirshberg, president and chief executive officer of Stonyfield Farm, said healthy vending machines will bring in less profit because the products cost more to make. He said the Stonyfield machines stocked with health food have been generating sales that average between $150 and $200 a week in the Rhode Island schools. He estimates sales from traditional machines range between $400 and $800 a week. But he said he hopes the costs of producing the items will drop as more schools turn to healthy vending machines. For now, he said, his company is selling the food for the vending machines at a reduced price. "I don't know if we will ever make a nickel, and I don't care," said Hirshberg, who likes to say he is on a mission to erase the notion that if food is healthy, children won't eat it. "If I can make it cool to chug down a [natural yogurt] smoothie or scarf down a yogurt," he said, "then kids can have a Kit Kat once in a while."
This story ran on page A1 of the Boston Globe on
3/17/2004.
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