For Dustin Walker, Pinellas County Schools' director of food and nutrition, raising prices is the last thing he wants to do to families.
"Honestly, every penny matters, and it adds up, especially when you have multiple students," said Walker.
But after keeping school lunch prices the same for five years, he says the district is feeling the pinch.
This fall, the cost for lunch is increasing by $0.50 to $2.75 in elementary schools, and by $0.40 to $3.15 in middle and high schools.
"When we set our pricing, we made sure we were not increasing the burden too much onto households and also staying very competitive with our surrounding districts," Walker said.
He encouraged families to submit an application for free and reduced-price lunch if they haven't already. If they qualify, families also become eligible for other benefits such as reduced athletic fees.
The Pasco County School District also rolled out new meal prices for the 2025-26 school year. Their increase is part of a decision in 2024 to increase meal prices by 5% every year.
Elementary and middle school lunch will go up from $3.25 to $3.40.
High school lunch is increasing from $3.75 to $3.95.
"Like other food service industries, we have experienced significant increases in food cost, supplies, and labor," read a school board report submitted by Stephanie Spicknall the director of Food and Nutrition Services. "In addition, many of our vendor partners are discussing increases due to tariffs."
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Cost increases will not apply to schools that provide free lunch to all students under the federal Community Eligibility Provision (CEP). Nor will it affect students who qualify for free and reduced-price lunch on an individual basis.
Polk, Hernando and Citrus county school districts offer free lunch to all students under CEP because a significant number of students qualify for free and reduced-price lunch.
Spokespeople for Hillsborough and Sarasota school districts said they will not be raising lunch prices in the fall.
Sarasota approved a 20% price hike last year drawing complaints from parents and students.
A spokesperson for the Manatee County school district said lunch prices will be decided at an upcoming school board meeting.
Why are meal costs increasing?
Walker said Pinellas was able to shore up funds during the pandemic when the federal government provided additional aid to schools so students could eat for free. The USDA had also provided $2 billion in supply chain assistance at the time.
However, that buffer is thinning out, said Walker.
"This year is the first year where that revenue generated during pandemic is reaching a point where we can no longer continue at the pace that we are," he said.
Walker added that meal reimbursements from the federal government to schools have been traditionally low.
The School Nutrition Association is asking U.S. Congress to raise those reimbursement rates. A survey of 1,390 school meal program directors conducted by the group this school year showed that 96.8% indicated they require increased funding.
The threat of tariffs and cuts to federal funding are also looming large.
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Walker said they're watching the tariff situation closely and are in communication with their distributors about the potential for more rising costs.
"I think most distributors are trying to communicate in advance with school meal programs because our budgets are super tight," he said. "We operate as nonprofit programs, so all this revenue that's generated goes right back into purchasing that food, supplies and covering our staff."
Meanwhile, federal lawmakers are considering narrowing the eligibility for CEP, which means students could lose access to free and reduced-price meals.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has also suspended the Local Food for Schools Cooperative Agreement Program that helped bring local fresh produce to school lunch trays.
Florida was supposed to receive an estimated $42.5 million through the program, according to the USDA table accessed through the Wayback Machine archive.
For now, Walker said they're going into the 2025-26 school year "the same as [they] would have last year, until something changes."
"There's still opportunity out there, and we're always looking for ways to work with our local farmers, producers and Florida-grown purveyors," Walker said.
The district is planning to launch a scratch cooking program in six schools, where meals will be cooked in house and rely less on pre-packed, processed food.
"We have goals in place to make sure that the products that we're sourcing are minimally processed — whole muscle chicken, as opposed to the processed chicken," said Walker, "that's a tad more expensive, but, in the long term, it's better for our students' health."
