For many years, the Kaneland student body has complained about the lunch prices in the cafeteria, with hot lunch now sitting at $3.85 each day. The expensive a la carte options are  also financially inconvenient to many people. Are lower prices a realistic possibility? Or are they a pleasant dream we are simply entertaining ourselves with? Based on what I found from research and the lunch prices in nearby schools, it certainly seems possible that our prices could be lowered.

With inflation happening on a national level, it is only natural that local prices must go up as well. However, the current prices seem unrealistic. A sandwich or a la carte main dish costs $4.00 or $4.50, a cup of fruit is $3.00 and chips are $1.50 for a side option. If you have a sandwich and fruit each day, that’s about $7.00 a day. If you multiply this by five days a week and four weeks a month, that is $140 on lunch each month. The Illinois State Board of Education requires a minimum of 185 days of attendance in the school year, which comes out to $1,295 on lunch for a year. This is only an example, as most people do not buy the same exact thing every day. 

A la carte prices were last increased at the beginning of second semester during the 2024-25 school year. The district’s J-5 approval of a la carte service programming project pricing update indicated the approval of an increase in the prices of all packaged snacks by $0.25, $0.50 or $0.75. The Board of Education hoped to both generate more revenue from the lunch line and to encourage students to purchase healthier options. While that sounds like a good idea, the healthier food is still more expensive. Instead of buying healthier things, people are just buying less. 

I was curious what the difference would be if you bought lunch items at the store versus in the lunch line, so I went to Woodman’s in North Aurora to find out. The first thing I looked at was the cost of chips. Depending on which brand and type of bulk package you choose, the cost per bag of chips is $0.40 to $0.67. In the cafeteria, any choice of chips is listed as $1.50. Similarly, the large muffins are $0.73 in bulk, $1.19 singularly and $2.25 in the cafeteria. Uncrustables are $0.80 in a large bulk pack and $1.75 in the lunch line. 

I bet if you break down the ingredients needed to make the sandwiches, yogurt and other options, you would see a similar trend. While I agree that the school needs to sell above the store’s sales price to help cover other food-related costs, an entire dollar or more seems unnecessary. 

“I think [the prices] are reasonable, because the school still needs to make money, but I do think they should be at least a little bit lower,” sophomore Evie Shinofield said. 

One could argue that the current prices are the minimum that the school needs to charge to provide food. However, other schools in our area do not have these same prices. Batavia’s website states that they charge $3.35 for hot lunch, Sycamore’s website states that their hot lunch costs $2.70 and West Aurora’s website states that they charge $2.75. Geneva’s website states that they, like Kaneland, charge $3.85 for hot lunch. Their a la carte is similar to ours as well. Their chips are $1.50, and fruit is $3.00. Geneva junior Penny McCutcheon agrees that the prices are too high. 

“I feel like everything in [the lunch line] is kind of a ridiculous price,” McCutcheon said. 

Sycamore’s a la carte prices are lower than ours as well. They sell a sandwich for $3.30, chips for $1.35 and fruit for $1.00. At Kaneland, a sandwich is $4.00 or $4.50, chips are $1.50 and fruit is $3.00. Batavia’s a la carte prices include $2.00 for chips, and all entrees are $5.75. Each entree comes with a choice of fruit or vegetable and beverage. At Kaneland, an entree and fruit would be $7.50 or $6.50 depending on the option of the day. At Sycamore, the same sandwich and fruit combo that is $140 a month at Kaneland is only $86. While their system is a little different, it would be $115 at Batavia. 

While I am sure there is a rationale for lunch room prices, there are different ways to determine how much to charge students. If the district wants to encourage healthier choices, they could lower the cost of fruit and raise the cost of other items to make up for it. However, continuing to raise prices that are already higher than schools around us is not the answer. If they can do it, so can we.