Recently, Taher has increased the prices of some of the foods and drinks sold to Benilde-St. Margaret’s students during the school day. Taher provides a wide variety of foods like pizza, salads, and of course, cookies. However, students have noticed that every year, they are paying a little more for food at school.
In speaking to Ms. Lynn Lynch, BSM’s Food Service Director, there are many reasons for the price increases. The biggest and most obvious reason for this is the dramatic inflation that everyone is experiencing across the United States. According to Lynch, there have been costs added that she did not have to pay before, and those affect how much she has to charge students for food. “Labor costs, inflation, the cost for the farmers to feed, gas prices–all that comes back around to what I pay for them as well; labor costs have gone way up since COVID,” Lynch said.
Lynch tries not to increase everything, especially items students really like. Take the infamous Taher cookies, for example. The price of a cookie hasn’t increased in five years. Though Taher did increase the cost of an entree by $0.10 this year, the price had remained the same for the two previous years. While things like the new delivery surcharge are causing the prices to go up, Lynch said she tries not to make the increases too big. The items that were increased this year were raised between $0.05 to $0.10. “I don’t think in all the years I’ve been here I’ve raised anything more than a quarter,” Lynch said.
Despite the marginally small increase, students have said that the price increases are, in fact, noticeable. In a recent survey sent out by the Knight Errant, out of the 46 students that responded, 80% said that they eat lunch provided by Taher. Of those students, a vast majority responded that they noticed certain items getting more expensive, “I guess I understand it because of inflation, but it’s just annoying knowing that, over time, I just have to pay a lot more money,” junior Harrison Weber said.
Some students say that the cost of food at BSM impacts how much they are willing to buy during the day, which can leave them still feeling hungry after eating. “It’s just hard to try to budget [what] I’m spending but also be filled at the same time,” Weber said.
Some students, like junior Andrew Walker, are also understanding of the increase but wish that Taher would be more transparent with their customers. “I understand that they have to make a profit, but maybe be a little bit more transparent with that….the price of food and all that keeps increasing, but they aren’t explaining really why,” Walker said.