Open Collections

Kim, Dan

University of British Columbia

BACKGROUND: Canada is currently the only OECD country without a national school food program. The Government of Canada recently committed to working with different levels of government, Indigenous partners, and stakeholders towards a national school food policy. However, limited data on the costs of running a program in Canada is an evidence gap for making informed policy decisions. OBJECTIVES: This project aimed to synthesize published literature on the full costs of producing school lunches, estimate these costs in the BC provincial context, and gain stakeholder insights on the context and costs of existing programs in BC. METHODS: A literature review through Ovid MEDLINE, Web of Science, CAB Direct, ERIC (EBSCO), and additional grey literature gathered evidence on the costs of producing school lunches. Through a subsequent costing exercise, these costs were estimated in BC and a novel interactive costing tool was developed. Interviews (n=9) then highlighted perspectives of school district staff, government representatives, those directly involved in school food programs, and those with expertise on programs costs. These perspectives offered insights and contextualized the existing school food programs in BC, as well as the estimates and the interactive costing tool from the costing exercise. RESULTS: The literature (n=6 studies) reported costs associated with school lunches in the US, Norway, and Wales. The ensuing costing exercise produced a range of $2.79 to $5.18 for the estimated cost of preparing lunches in BC schools, while an array of input variables – including school characteristics (e.g., number of students), staffing information, additional costs, and revenue – were used to build the interactive costing tool. Stakeholders responded positively to the tool and highlighted its value for program planning, while providing insights into the major cost categories (e.g., food, human resources, infrastructure) and the policy considerations relevant to the BC context. DISCUSSION: This novel interactive costing tool is the key contribution of this research project. It simultaneously addresses the knowledge gap (of the missing evidence on school food program costs) while allowing the user to define the costing parameters using real numbers when estimating the costs of preparing school lunches in BC.

Text

2023-03-16

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/83926

Population and Public Health

University of British Columbia

UBCV

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/