L’inflation affects absolutely all sectors. With the start of the new school year approaching, this worries families who must, in addition to price increases in food and energy, face price increases for their children’s supplies, but also, soon, for meals in school canteens. This should therefore weigh on the budgets of local authorities and parents. “It is not impossible that the families have very bad surprises at the 1is September”, already estimated the consumer association Confédération Syndicale des Familles (CSF) last week, when many parents were still thinking about the holidays.
In its annual study on the cost of the start of the school year, the CSF noted that the meal prices for the coming year were not yet known in many municipalities, fearing a possible increase at the start of the school year or next January.
Private catering companies, which manage 40% of school canteens as part of a public service delegation – 60% being managed directly by the municipalities – have been sounding the alarm for several months. Preparing meals for schoolchildren is costing them more and more and they are therefore asking local authorities to agree to pay more than their contracts stipulated.
A 7% increase requested
“Current inflation exceeds what was foreseeable,” Esther Kalonji, the general delegate of the SNRC, National Union of Collective Catering, told AFP. The contracts in force “are no longer sufficient to take into account the increase in the cost of raw materials, wages, but also energy”. Professionals have asked their clients, municipalities or conurbations, to pay at least 7% more on average for the services provided. According to the SNRC, communities have so far agreed to an average increase of around 4%.
These requests “do not seem excessive at first glance”, reacts the mayor (UDI) of Sceaux, Philippe Laurent, vice-president of the Association of mayors of France (AMF), for whom “most municipalities will accept” the requests from professionals. But what impact for households, whose purchasing power has been the primary concern for months? “The idea is not to see families’ bills increase,” says Esther Kalonji.
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The price increase on which local authorities and service providers will agree, on a case-by-case basis, “will not systematically lead to a higher cost at the start of the 2022 school year”, estimates the CSF, which recalls that a possible increase at the end of the chain will be made by decision of the town halls for nursery and primary schools, of the departments for the colleges, and of the regions for the high schools. Some communities, such as Libourne in Gironde or Dunkirk in the North, have already “decided to take charge of all of this tariff increase”, recalls the association.
Compared to many other price increases that communities are currently facing, that of the price of canteen meals seems less sensitive, according to Philippe Laurent. “If I take the example of my town of 20,000 inhabitants, the collective catering budget weighs around 800,000 euros. A 7% increase is 56,000 euros more, a figure to be compared with the overall budget which is around 40 million euros,” he says.
Families with small budgets protected?
The social pricing of meals, in force in about half of the municipalities, could make it possible to protect households with the smallest budgets from an additional financial effort. The municipalities will also be able to choose to impose price increases only on the parents with the highest incomes, or to increase local taxes as a whole. Or even reduce their expenses.
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“Each will make their choice”, underlines Philippe Laurent, recalling that “even the parents with the highest incomes do not pay today all the meals” of canteen, whose average cost is included “between 9 and 10 euros “. He hopes that the consequence will not be a lower quality, or a lower quantity of meals served to French students. “Our requests should not be made to the detriment of the quality of the menus”, agrees Esther Kalonji.
The Egalim law, promulgated in 2018, set the objective for public canteens to serve at least 50% of so-called sustainable or quality products, including 20% from organic farming.