Aramark Wins Bid For Seaford Food Services

The Seaford School District will continue its working relationship with food service giant Aramark after the Board of Education approved the company’s proposed bid at Thursday night’s regular meeting.

Three companies bid to be the service provider, but Aramark was able to significantly out bid the other two – providing the school district with the lowest offer, according to the Board of Education.

“There was quite a bit of difference between the lowest company, Aramark, and the second lowest company – about a 35 cents per meal difference,” said Superintendent Brian Conboy during the meeting at .

Though the district was not required to request new bids this year by law, they did because of a previous problem Aramark had with paperwork. According to Conboy, Aramark neglected to list the nutritional information in the food being dispensed to the district’s students. This clerical error was faulted to a specific manager, who was fired and replace, and the company was fined, Conboy said.

“It wasn’t that anything was wrong with the food, but there were new standards for filing paperwork at the state level,” Conboy added. Though the fines were at no cost to the school, Conboy explained that the Seaford School District wasn’t happy with the situation.

“We were ready to go to another company, but because they out bid, improved their menus and resolved everything they had to do with nutritional postings, we decided it was the best interest of the district,” he said. “…When we saw that the bids were not even close we believe that it is in the best interest of the district, of the students and of the families to go with them again this year.

Conboy emphasized that the district will have to go through the bid process again next year because it will be mandated by federal law at that time. This is because the government is requiring that school district’s raise their meal prices to reflect the amount that is paid federally for subsidized lunches.

Seaford Assistant Superintendent for Business Ken Aldrich explained that the government provides districts with $2.72 for any meal that is provided to a student free of charge. Additionally, they get money for partially subsidized meals as well as every meal they sell at normal price.

To keep up with the requirements, prices this year will be raised from $1.90 and $1.75 to $2 and $2.25. The current cost of a meal, under the new contract with Aramark, is $2.33 per meal, with the difference in price being made up by subsidies. By next year they have to reach about $2.50 per meal on the retail price, Aldrich said.

“In our case, we figured we would raise the level of quality of the food commensurate with some of the increases that we knew would happen,” Aldrich said. “Now we will have two entrees every day and we will have a fresh fruit item. The bids were bid this year on a more nutritious package.”