Orders for school lunch supplies have been canceled one after another as schools across the country have begun to close due to the spread of the new coronavirus, causing huge losses to food providers for school lunches.
A bread maker in Kanagawa Prefecture, which supplies bread to more than 50 schools in the prefecture, has received cancellations for all of its scheduled bread production in March, and halted production at its factory on Monday. The factory employs dozens of full-time and part-time workers. "Sales will decrease, but salaries for employees will have to be paid, making management difficult," a company official said.
School lunch associations in each prefecture, which procure food for schools, have received a flurry of cancellations from schools.
According to the national federation of school lunch associations, fresh food ordered by school lunch associations from food makers may be discarded if it cannot be stored for a long time. "To deal with problems such as cancellation fees, we would like to compile [facts on] the situation nationwide as soon as possible and consult with the government," said a senior official of the federation.
Milk procured for school lunches is also expected to become unnecessary. A Tokyo-based federation of milk producer associations, which supplies about 500 tons of milk a day to schools in the Kanto region, plans to find other places to sell milk, such as supermarkets, or to have milk processed into cheese. An official of the federation said, "We want people to drink milk at home to keep it from going to waste."
In Ichinomiya, Aichi Prefecture, on Sunday, when school closures had begun, an event to cheaply sell fresh foodstuffs such as vegetables was held to reduce food losses. These foods were procured to be used for school lunches. Chinese cabbages and Japanese leeks were offered for 50 yen to 100, yen about half the retail price.
The municipal government of Komae, Tokyo, has started offering lunches for 200 yen per meal to elementary school children who attend 13 day care centers in the city from Monday. Meals are expected to be served during school closures and until spring break. A mother of a first-grade daughter, 37, said, "I thought I would have to make a bento lunch box [during school closures], so the lunch is very helpful."
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