What’s cooking in Lexington’s school cafeterias? A Lot.

On the first Monday in November this year, Lexington High School’s cafeteria was busier than ever. Sixty-three percent of students at LHS—1,502 students—lined up to buy school lunch, a stark contrast to 15 years ago when average daily participation in the school lunch program was about one-third of the student body, or 650 students per day. Two major shifts occurred in the intervening years: in 2012, the district ended its contract with a national food service management company and began to work with the more regional Whitsons Culinary Group, and shortly after the COVID-19 pandemic began in 2020, school lunch became free for all public school students in Massachusetts.

To understand what that record day represents, it helps to look at how school lunch operates. Even within the broad food industry, school lunch is a particularly unique and challenging model of food service. Customers—children under the age of 18—arrive simultaneously in large waves and have only a few minutes to pick out their lunch, check out at the cashier, and stake out an empty seat. As social creatures, this last step—finding a seat with friends—can be the hardest part, especially in crowded cafeterias with limited seating.

In Lexington’s five elementary schools, the food service program is intentionally simple: a breakfast and lunch special are offered each day alongside four alternative options to accommodate a variety of dietary restrictions. Students move their tray along a single continuous counter to pick out the three required components of their lunch and check out. Fruits and vegetables are offered first to teach and practice the habit of always taking one; entrees are served next; milk is offered last. Students eat by grade to keep lines short and moving. Menus are posted a month in advance, which families use to plan the days on which their children will eat school lunch—Yardbird chicken sandwich and pizza days typically being two of the most popular. 

The model changes considerably in high school. Two multistation serving areas and cafeterias resemble a college dining hall, with students scattered into shorter lines to pick up lunch from one of seven stations before reconvening at the registers. Most LHS students opt for grab and go—pizza, premade burgers, sandwiches, salads, or the daily hot special. On the recent record-setting day, 23 percent went straight for the hot special, mac and cheese. Twenty-nine percent waited for made-to-order meals, whether a deli sandwich or a rice bowl or nachos from the popular Mexican “Coyote Grill” station. About 1 percent assembled lunch from the salad bar. Six Whitsons staff members work the registers during LHS’ three 30-minute lunch periods, and each is expected to move through their lines—usually upwards of 230 students—in the first 10 minutes in order to allow students to have the Wellness Committee-mandated 20 minutes of a seated lunch.

Middle school is a bridge between the two service models; students from all three grades eat simultaneously, but the 800+ student population is divided into four lunch periods to manage crowding and lessen social pressures in the cafeterias. Support personnel control the flow of students into the serving line. Students move their tray along a single continuous counter towards checkout, with LHS’ seven food concepts presented in sequence in a mostly grab-and-go format. Diamond has a separate made-to-order deli station that sells about 100 sandwiches a day; Clarke’s deli is closed due to space constraints and labor challenges.

As school lunch has become more popular, so too have the expectations surrounding it—locally and nationally. Mary Ellen Normen, assistant superintendent for finance and operations from 2006–15, recalls the climate around school lunch when former food service management company Chartwells’ contract was not renewed. “We had a very active parent community… While the [Chartwells] menus at the time were good and better than many districts in terms of nutritional value and what was being served, there was a request and an interest in a higher level of food quality.”

Lexington is currently in the fourth year of its third five-year contract with Whitsons Culinary Group. Resident district manager Kevin Silvia leads a team of 57 Whitsons employees who work in Lexington. Silvia, a full-time Whitsons employee, works from an office at Lexington High School wearing an LPS lanyard and ID card with a Whitsons-branded polo shirt—attire that mirrors his dual role liaising between and being a face of both Whitsons and Lexington Public Schools. 

Silvia’s role as resident district manager reflects decades of school lunch policy-making at every level. In addition to hiring the staff that cook, feed, and deliver food to all 10 schools, Silvia ensures that meals meet USDA and state requirements as well as the district’s own “aggressive nutrition guidelines,” and manages a budget approaching $5 million along with the equipment and software that keep the program running. Silvia also represents food services on the district wellness committee and handles customer service for students, families, and school administrators.

Originally from Rhode Island, Silvia studied hotel and restaurant management at Johnson & Wales University, and worked in hotels, restaurants, and corporate dining before joining Whitsons in 2009. Silvia loves food because “you can have a conversation with people from other cultures and it gives you a connection.” But he never imagined that he would work in school lunch. Sixteen years into the role, Silvia says repeatedly, “It’s all about the kids. We’re feeding children and taking care of them.”

When the National School Lunch Program was established in 1946, its dual mission was to “strengthen the Nation’s nutrition safety net by providing nutritious meals to school children, and [to] support American agricultural markets by providing USDA Foods for use in school lunches.” 

Federal funding for the school lunch program is based on the number of meals served each year and is offered in two forms: USDA Foods and cash reimbursement. USDA Foods support the farming industry in America and are meant to help schools leverage the scale of the federal government’s purchasing power. The USDA estimates that USDA Foods—commodities including beef, pork, fish, poultry, egg products, fruits, vegetables, grains, nuts, seeds, dairy products and oils—typically make up about 15 to 20 percent of school lunch. 

Last year, Lexington received $392,561 to spend on USDA Foods: 35 percent was spent on the Department of Defense Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program to purchase ingredients for salads and salad bars, roasted vegetables for Coyote Grill, and fruit; 34 percent was spent on “Brown Box” foods—foods with minimal or no processing, such as proteins for Coyote Grill like 80/20 ground beef, lean chicken, and beans; and 31 percent was spent on bulk foods diverted to government-approved manufacturers—51,906 pounds of potatoes were shredded into tater tots, 4,777 pounds of cheese made into a low-fat, high-protein sauce for Coyote Grill, 40,220 pounds of whole muscle chicken were butchered—not ground—for chicken sandwiches and other entrees, and more. 

Even with these donated commodity foods, the cost to fill out the rest of the plate is considerable; Lexington spent an additional $1,397,500 on food during the school year 2024–25. With food services revenue for the year at $4,792,344, the total food cost, $1,790,061, is about 37 percent of revenue.

In the food service industry, costs are usually measured against a set of benchmarks. Restaurants typically strive to keep costs of goods sold—the price of food and materials that go into every food item—at about 30 percent of sales. High-volume operations with strong purchasing leverage can push that number slightly lower, while fine-dining kitchens—where menus rely on specialty and hard-to-source ingredients—often see their food cost creep towards 35 percent. When the cost of goods sold exceeds 35 percent, business can get tough; labor and overhead typically run at about 30 percent, leaving only a sliver of room for profit—or for absorbing the inevitable surprises that come with running a food operation.

Packaging adds another layer of expense to the cost of goods sold, and Lexington’s commitment to sustainability makes that percentage hard to control. Last year, only one school was equipped to use reusable trays and silverware; this year, there are two. The eight remaining schools rely on compostable tableware, a commitment that cost $164,808 last year and raised the total cost of goods sold to 41 percent. Whereas a disposable plastic fork can be sourced for less than $0.01, Silvia explains that compostable forks, spoons, and knives cost $0.09 each. Compostable bowls used for hot entrees and rice bowls cost $0.23 each.

The second form of funding for school lunch, cash reimbursement, was $4.74 per lunch served in school year 2024–25. As School Nutrition Association director Diane Pratt-Heavner said in a recent article, “We always say, for less than what you pay for a latte, schools have to serve a full meal.” In the 2026 Superintendent’s Budget Book, Food Services noted that rising food prices and ramifications of the plastic water bottle ban pushed the district’s cost of goods sold for a meal to a whopping 84 percent. 

In order to narrow the gap created by a low per-meal reimbursement rate and the district’s high cost of goods sold—41 percent when calculated from the top-down or 84 percent as reported from a per-plate analysis—Whitsons pursues auxiliary revenue sources in the form of grants and catering. In its request for proposals for a food management company, the district wrote in 2022, “Completing and/or participating in grant applications to further promote and enhance the program are also encouraged.” In the 2012 request for proposal, this behavior was “expected.”

One recent source of grant support came through a regional grant advocating for local foods in schools. During school years 2023–24 and 2024–25, a Northeast Food for Schools grant enabled the district to procure fresh fish from Red’s Best in Boston, Little Leaf Lettuce from Fort Devens, BrightFarms lettuce from New Hampshire, and Craic hot sauces made in Lowell, Massachusetts. Funding for this grant was cut in March 2025 and replaced with the Northeast Food for Schools challenge, a statewide initiative to purchase the equivalent amount, $6 million, of locally grown foods by the end of 2026, and to track all local food spending on a state-procured web platform. 

For Lexington, the statewide challenge translates to a pledge to spend at least $41,817 in school year 2025–26 on locally grown foods with ingredients from Massachusetts counted at full purchase value while foods grown, raised, or harvested in New York or New England count as $0.33 for every dollar spent. Locally grown USDA Foods do not count. 

Silvia spoke animatedly about working with Red Tomato, a Rhode Island-based food hub, Worcester Food Hub, and a farm in Hadley, Mass., for local vegetables and fruit. Red’s Best continues to deliver to Whitsons and Craic sauces are still available at Coyote Grill. Whitsons, however, will not take part in the tracking part of the Northeast Food For Schools challenge this year.

Steadier sources of ancillary revenue are à la carte sales and catering. A la carte sales include drinks, snacks, and extra food such as a second sandwich or slice of pizza (more commonly purchased at the high school). Catering has grown from supporting special school events such as debate team tournaments and professional development programs to becoming a growing source of revenue from events hosted by other Town departments. In order to be a competitive bidder for district’s the food service management contract, catering services must be included; Whitsons’ current contract assumes annual catering sales of $138,000.

“I try to encourage people to use our catering department. We’re half of what they charge in town,” Silvia says. “Any of the money that we make in the [catering] program gets put back into employee salaries and food service equipment, and I have close to 20 walk-in [refrigerators] and freezers throughout the district [that require maintenance].” Last December, LexObserver reported that as part of the LPS spending freeze, catering for all professional development days must be ordered exclusively from Whitsons.

“Since I first got here in 2012, Lexington has always been in the top three in the state for education, so why can’t we match that with food?” Silvia says. He proudly shows LexObserver photos of meals served at all of the schools, platters of catering orders, and the stand-alone hydroponic gardening units that now grow basil and lettuce for the food services program.

Feeding children has never been easy. Neither is serving over 3,500 people across 10 locations within a 200-minute window each day. For Silvia, the work ultimately comes back to a simple principle, ”Sometimes food is an afterthought when actually it’s central. Not every kid takes calculus, but everyone eats lunch…”.