|
|
 |
School Nutrition, Childhood Obesity & Requests for Proposals
|
|
|
Government agencies, particularly public schools in America send out food contracts to prospective bidders on a daily basis. The food-related RFPs are often for cheap and affordable, easy to prepare, kid-friendly favorites that are unfortunately not often very healthy and nutritious. But from the very first days of First Lady Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” campaign, which advocates for progress on the issue of childhood obesity, the public consciousness of child health issues has ballooned. The dialogue about childhood health and nutrition is expanding so much so that more and more parents, educators, and administrators are demanding healthier foods to be served in schools.
In December of 2010, President Barack Obama signed into law the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act, which proposed a strong set of nutrition standards for school lunches in order to combat the growing public health epidemic of childhood obesity. However, Schwan’s Food Company, which supplies seventy percent of the pizza market within schools, successfully lobbied Congress to protect their interests and classify the tomato paste on pizza as a vegetable, among other things.
Reactions from the media have been critical. In an episode of Comedy Central’s The Daily Show, Jon Stewart poignantly proclaims “It’s not democracy, it’s DiGiorno." These unfortunate political circumstances have obviously not gone without any backlash and consequence. There is a growing trend in America that is demanding healthier foods for school lunches.
Though Schwan’s controls a large majority of the current pizza market in schools, there are still many RFP’s for pizza and other food products coming from schools that are hoping to award contracts outside of the traditional monopolistic markets. Should another company be awarded an RFP and provide a re-engineered, healthier formulation of a traditional food product like pizza, it may just be that that business will be awarded another RFP and supply more and more food products to schools around the country that are increasingly involved in a more progressive dialogue about childhood health and school nutrition.
|
Read more Blogs on Government RFP, Bid, Contract and Notice
|
|
