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Board awards child nutrition contract to Southwest Food Service, approves modest meal-price increase
Summary
The board awarded a multi‑year child nutrition contract to Southwest Food Service Excellence and approved raising full-price breakfast by $0.20 and lunch by $0.50 to maintain program sustainability; staff said the program serves about 6,350 children across 11 sites.
The Sahuarita Unified District governing board approved a recommendation to award the district’s child nutrition contract and simultaneously approved modest increases to full-price school meal rates.
After a multi-step RFP process that included vendor tours, solicitation, evaluation matrices and a best-and-final round, district staff recommended awarding RFP 2024‑1 for child nutrition services to Southwest Food Service Excellence. Staff said the solicitation drew responses from Chartwells K12, Southwest Food Service and other providers; committee scoring and Arizona Department of Education (ADE) procurement review guided the recommendation. The board approved the award by motion.
District staff described the program scale: roughly 6,350 children served at 11 sites (nine schools and two child-care centers), with annual volumes on the order of 130,000 breakfasts and 540,000 lunches. Vendors noted a long-standing partnership and expressed plans for new offerings in the five-year contract.
On a separate but related action, the board approved staff’s recommendation to increase full-price meals to support long-term sustainability. The board approved raising full-price breakfast by $0.20 (elementary to $1.25; secondary to $1.55) and full-price lunch by $0.50 (elementary $2.70; secondary $3.00). Superintendent Dr. Valenzuela and CFO Lisette Huey said the increase responds to rising food and labor costs and that federal school-meal funds cannot be used to cover the entire operating cost of the program.
Staff emphasized outreach to families about free and reduced-price benefits and said online and in-person assistance is available for applications. The vendor award and price changes were approved by voice votes during the meeting.
