By Logan Wells, News Director | Logan@kymnradio.net
The Northfield Public Schools served 65,267 breakfasts and 228,250 lunches in the first half of this school year. Those numbers were shared as part of the annual update on Child Nutrition to the Northfield School Board. The number of meals served by the school district rose significantly between 2023 and 2024 when the Minnesota State Legislature passed a new law providing free lunch for every student in the state. Between the last two years, the number has largely stayed the same.
Stephany Stromme is the Director of Child Nutrition for the School District:
“We know that research is showing that starting the day with breakfast can really help to enhance the day for our students. It helps with better academic performance, their concentration and even their test scores. We have seen a slight increase for this school year, about a 1%. Increase, which we’re happy to see even though enrollment has declined.” – Stephany Stromme, Northfield Schools Director of Child Nutrition at the 5/12/2025 School Board Meeting
This past year, expenses outpaced revenue, with higher-than-expected supply costs being the primary reason. Stromme says that their main supplier is anticipating food costs to increase in the coming year due to a variety of factors, including inflation and tariffs imposed by the Trump Administration:
“Our expenditures are so much higher for next year because we actually went with a 7% increase on our expenditures, whereas in the past we were probably closer to that 5 to 6%. So we wanted to give ourselves a little bit more of a buffer with that” – Stephany Stromme, Northfield Schools Director of Child Nutrition at the 5/12/2025 School Board Meeting
Stromme noted that a new program, called Buy American, mandates that the district buy 90% of food items from the United States. But that new mandate nationwide was raising concerns that suppliers would be able to keep up with the demand. The School District’s Director of Finance, Val Mertesdorf, stated that they were cautiously watching the situation for the future
“I also think as as we know more with the tariffs, we can respond more to the products that we’re choosing. We have some amazing options for students and that might have to be scaled back in the future unfortunately, but we don’t want to. React prematurely and be doing that.” – Val Mertesdorf, Northfield Schools Director of Finance at the 5/12/2025 School Board Meeting
The School Board is set to approve the Child Nutrition budget in June. Will have the full budget report listed on our website in today’s news.
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