The Warren County R-III School Board approved its meal prices, as well as its food service providers, for the 2017-18 school year during its monthly board meeting July 13.Lunch prices increased by 10 cents, with breakfast prices remaining the same.For students in kindergarten through fifth grade, lunch will be $2.75 per day. For those in sixth through 12th grade, lunch will now be $2.95.Breakfast will cost $1.50 across the board for all grade levels.“There is a calculation that the state gives,” said Assistant Superintendent Dr. Jill Schowe. “According to that, we should have raised our lunch prices by 11 cents to meet the weighted average, but they allow for us to round to the nearest 10-cent mark. We needed to raise our lunch prices by that much to meet the requirement.”The board approved the increase in student prices, but pulled the new adult prices to seek out more information. The adult prices were suggested to increase from $2.85 to $3.45.Food Service Director Deb Linke was attending the national conference and unable to be at the board meeting. She had stated that the drastic increase in adult prices is a product of limited change over the years.“Because we hadn’t been increasing the adult price through the years, we now have a bigger jump,” said Linke. “It wasn’t a regulation back then, and now it’s been added to DESE (Department of Secondary and Elementary Education) review. It’s become a checklist item that we now have to follow their formula to increase our adult meal prices.”For its service providers, the district opted to go with Bimbo over Kohl for its bread bid. Kohl was outbid on two other services as well, with R-III choosing Siedhoff for its milk services and Royal as its chemical and cleaning product provider.“With our milk services, we like to go with Siedhoff, because of their outstanding service and delivery,” said Linke. “We do better if we use an actual milk company rather than a grocery company.”Kohl was awarded the district’s overall food bid.School Lunch