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- Some Minnesota school districts are struggling to source enough food, The Star Tribune reported.
- Their provider ended its contract because of supply-chain and labor issues, per The Tribune.
- Districts said they were forced to switch between temporary providers to plug the gap.
School districts in northwestern Minnesota are struggling to feed their students after their provider ended its contract because of the supply-chain chaos and labor shortage, per a report by The Star Tribune.
Food distributor Cash-Wa ended its contract with the Lakes Country Service Cooperative, which supplies 57 school districts, earlier this month after giving notice in September, The Tribune reported.
"It's kind of every district for itself right now," Jeremy Olson, superintendent of Crookston Public Schools, said. "It's week-to-week whether or not we're going to be able to get food."
He said the district was switching between temporary providers to get food "wherever we can."
Krystal Boyd, food-service director at Perham-Dent Public Schools, said it was using two temporary providers because neither had the food or delivery drivers to supply the district on its own, The Tribune reported.
She said that its schools once had to throw away more than 250 servings of food after being forced to turn to different brands which she said didn't taste as good.
"It's just been a headache for food service directors up here," Boyd said.
The Minnesota Department of Education told The Tribune that it had an emergency contract with a trucking company to supply some US Department of Agriculture commodity foods to the districts. It said that the cooperative was looking for a new food provider but that none had applied.
Cash-Wa, the Minnesota Department of Education, and the LCSC did not immediately respond to an Insider request for comment made outside of regular working hours.
Record numbers of Americans are quitting their jobs in search of better wages, benefits, and working conditions - including truck drivers. This has led to chaos across the supply chain, affecting products from freezers to Coca-Cola.
Some schools have been forced to take catering into their own hands, like, a Philadelphia elementary-school principal who ordered pizza for 400 students after food-services staff didn't show up.