Welcome to Crazy Town REVISITED: the Culprits for Price Hikes of School Lunches are…'Putin' and 'Inflation'

An enquiry into the envisaged school lunch issue shows politicians' incompetence, media falling over itself in 'reporting', and the utterly sorry state of 'democracy' in the West

Dear readers, a couple of days ago, I brought to your attention a piece of local news that I found both interesting and troubling. The local affair concerned school lunches in Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany, which, from 2023/24 onwards will only be vegetarian, more expensive, and compulsory.

For background, please visit:

Welcome to Crazy Town: Freiburg im Breisgau, located in Germany’s Green-led Pseudo-Utopia of Baden-Württemberg, is Set to Outlaw Meat in Kindergartens and Public Schools

Now, I’ve done some more digging, and you may read the results either in German over at tkp.at or continue reading in these pages.

To me, the result is perhaps even more troubling, and it’s not only because of the compelled nature of the Freiburg City Council’s envisaged measure; in addition to municipal councillors riding roughshod over the people they ostensibly serve, the below account is also a telling example of the failure of ‘journalism’—of both the ‘legacy’ and ‘alternative media’ garden varieties.

Primary schools and kindergartens in Freiburg im Breisgau to serve only vegetarian food from 2023/24 onwards.

Many people vote for the Greens for moralistic reasons, but their participation in government increases the pressure on dissenters.

The sun is setting on local democracy and sanity in Freiburg im Breisgau.

Talking about politics and morals is not an entirely ‘safe’ thing to do these days: wherever you look, obstacles predominate, more or less sincere objections are raised, and in the ‘worst’ case, it’s a career-ender. One has come to ‘expect’ appropriate ‘apologies’ or even a ‘perp walk’ by politicians who have tampered with the trust of the people (e.g., Bill Clinton for being on Jeffrey Epstein’s ‘Lolita Express’), but this is a news article to be taken seriously and not an opinion piece.

Freiburg im Breisgau Abolishes Fish and Meat in Kindergartens and Primary Schools

As several German media outlets reported in unison last week, the city council of Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany, is taking the wave of price increases seriously—and, as Uwe Mauch notes in the Badische Zeitung on 20 Sept 2022, is raising the price of meals in public day-care centres and primary schools. At the same time, the option of choosing between different kinds of meals is also ended

Meet Silke Donnermeyer-Weisser, currently serving as head of the Municipal Education Authority (Schuldezernat), and Christa Zink, head of the municipal Day-Care Centres, who both emphasise that this measure will both improve the quality of school lunches and keep the price per meal and child within limits.

Currently, according to the Badische Zeitung, a school lunch costs an average of 5.90 € (around US$5.50), although the Education Authority projects prices to rise to 6.50 € in the next school year. Meals in day-care centres are comparatively cheaper at around 4.50 € per lunch. Note, further, that analogous changes are also in the offing for secondary schools and high schools (Gymnasien), but the Freiburg Education Authority wants to see how the voters react to the price hikes in day-care centres and primary schools.

In other words, it remains to be seen if the parents of kindergarten and primary school children would acquiesce to these changes before they are imposed on everyone else.

As noted, this item first appeared in the Badische Zeitung on 20 Sept. and it was quickly picked up by other regional media: for example, Nadja Pohl reported on it two days later at BW24, but it is worth pointing out her article also appeared verbatim on the same 22 Sept. 2022 in the Münchner Merkur (which in turn belongs to the same publishing group owned by one Dirk Ippen, which, by the way, is the fifth-largest media conglomerate in Germany).

Yet, no media outlet, including the one I cited two days ago, actually looked at the new legislation. So, let’s put the media landscape aside for the moment and take a look at the municipal council bill.

How Make Political Sausage, Freiburg- Style: A Farce

If you spend a little time with Freiburg’s municipal legislative information system, you will find the documents that the City Cuncil will discuss on Tuesday, 18 Oct 2022. Under the title ‘Beschluss-Vorlage G-22/015 (öffentlich)’, which merely indicates that it’s this proposed bill will come up for a vote, it is possible to obtain all relevant documents.

In the draft resolution by Silke Donnermeyer-Weisser we read, on p. 2, that the municipal council (according to § 70.1 of the Gem[einde-]O[rdordnung]) was not consulted, nor was there any ‘consultation with municipal actors’. This was done despite the fact that Ms. Donnermeyer-Weisser’s proposed measure has a number of—not least—'financial implications’.

Since the legacy and alternative media contributions cited above and two days ago all offer quite a lot of opinions compared to facts, we shall take a detailed look at the proposed bill. At the heart of the matter of G-22/015 are the following measures:

An increase of the parental contribution to school lunches from 4.40 € in the school year 2023/2024, which is to be followed by another hike to 4.80 € from the school year 2024/2025 (paras. 1 and 2).

In municipal day-care centres, a ‘uniform parental contribution’ of 4.20 € is to be introduced from the 2023/2024 onwards; this amount will be increased to 4.60 € from the subsequent kindergarten year (paras. 3 and 4).

The abolition of fish and meat options is mentioned in paragraph 5 (my emphasis):

The municipal council decides... to offer only one—vegetarian—dish in primary schools and day-care centres from the school year 2023/2024. The proportion of organic products in school and day-care catering will be increased from the current 20% to 30%, and a further increase is planned in the medium term. The Council commissions the municipal administration with the implementation.

Apart from the issues already mentioned, there are at least two other aspects that must be discussed in detail: first, part of the ‘additional costs’ identified as price drivers across legacy and alternative media are likely due to the increase in more expensive organic products compared to ‘regular’ food. Note, also, that the municipal council is talking about increasing the share of organic products to 40% ‘in the medium term’, which is to say that the next price hikes are already in the pipeline. In passing, we further note that the line of reasoning applied by Ms. Donnermeyer-Weisser follows a certain, if circular, logic: additional costs result, at least in part, from increasing the share of organic products, which in turn are held up to the parents as an ‘argument’ for the price increases in the first place. Let us note, for the record, that the reason for the price increase is the organic food requirement of the head of the Education Authority led by—Silke Donnermeyer-Weisser.

Second, paragraph 5 further holds that whatever happens as a result of the municipal council’s decision, which is expected to take place on 18 Oct. 2022, will be a matter for the city’s permanent administration. There has neither been any consultation with local stakeholders nor have there been any talks with the relevant municipal bodies. To add insult to injury, there will in all likelihood also be no further opportunities to discuss these measures in public, to say nothing about the willingness by the Education Authority to do so.

Finally, in paragraph 6, there is an interesting clause, which holds that the local council may (my emphasis)

empower the administration with the introduction of a simplified and obligatory ordering and billing procedure from the school year 2023/2024 onwards (e.g., a monthly subscription system with monthly cancellation option) for all municipal day-care centres and public primary schools.

As we’ve already seen in paragraph 5, the municipal council is to delegate everything to ‘the administration’. This not only raises questions of political (in)accountability, but also conveys a compulsory, if not coercive, quality to these measures through the envisaged introduction of a ‘compulsory ordering and billing procedure’ for everyone.

Compulsory school attendance is now followed by compulsory ‘choice’ (by the municipal Education Authority) in school canteens.

So much for the draft resolution, but what about the facts behind it?

The Elephant in the Kid’s Room, or: the Privatisation of Costs

According to the draft resolution (p. 3), the parental contribution at Freiburg primary and secondary schools currently amounts to 3.90 € per meal, whereas ‘the actual price per meal is currently 5.90 € on average’. The ratio between parental contributions and public funding is therefore 2 : 1, i.e., parents already bear 2/3 of the costs and the City of Freiburg pays the remaining third.

In the case of kindergartens, the situation is a tad different: on the one hand, ‘the parental contribution...varies, even if day-care centres are supplied by the same caterer’. Also, until now, ‘it was possible for day-care centre parents to pay for the entire cost of the caterer’s service without exceeding the maximum limit for school meals (previously 3.90 €)’.

Up until now, there has been a wide range of choice in day-care centres and schools, although this varies greatly. According to the draft resolution (pp. 3-4), there are the following clauses in the contracts of the caterers: 2 menu lines per week with fish and meat dishes on all 5 days of the week and ‘a completely vegetarian menu line’; these meals consist of a starter, main course, and dessert, and these meals must include at least 20% organic ingredients. Parents and children may choose on a daily basis, which, as the media unanimously reported, leads to considerable administrative burden—and surely also a vast amounts of leftovers to be disposed of, which remain unmentioned in the draft resolution as well as in all media reports.

Now, however, we read (on p. 4) that ‘an improvement and streamlining is necessary’ in order to secure the provision of meals at schools and municipal day-care centres in the long term and to ‘keep the municipal subsidy requirements’—which currently amounts to 590,000 € per annum (as shown in Appendix 2)—'within limits’.

Ms. Donnermeyer-Weisser’s ‘solution’ is as follows (my emphases):

The municipality aims for a reasonable increase of the parental contribution to school and day-care catering, in line with current food and production prices. This comes with no prejudice to the children’s right to a free lunch under the education and participation agenda.

But how high is a ‘reasonable increase of the parental contribution’, especially as parental contributions already constitute 2/3 of the total costs?

Ms. Donnermeyer-Weisser also has an explanation for these price hikes ready (my emphases):

For the year 2023, the administration projects an average price of at least 6.50 € per meal based on the available figures and catering contracts. This sum includes all catering costs, i.e., in addition to the use of ingredients, this also includes logistics, the serving of meals, and the clean-up afterwards. The increase can be explained by the fact that the catering involves mainly services whose prices have risen disproportionately due to the war in Ukraine (food, transport costs). The logistics for two [sic, as it’s actually three] different menus also play a role here, as well as the fact that the caterers can only plan the respective quantities at short notice.

A remarkable statement, which indicates that, on the one hand, ‘Putin’ is indirectly held responsible for the rising costs (note the complete absence of any mention of the EU Commission’s contribution to this mess via its insane ‘liberalisation’ of ‘energy markets’, which, I’d argue, is perhaps a tad more responsible for the price explosion as it preceded the advent of Russia’s ‘special military operation’).

We note, in passing, that the Freiburg municipal administration is obviously not among the best when it comes to negotiating catering contracts. While we’re at it, I fail to understand Ms. Donnermeyer-Weisser’s concern about the caterer that—and not only since yesterday—earn their daily bread with, well, catering (and two to three menu lines), but is alleged to be overwhelmed with the logistics of, you know, serving food when challenged by short-term changes in the patron’s culinary desires. (By the way, it should be noted that Ms. Donnermeyer-Weisser only mentions two menu lines here, but there are three: fish, meat, and vegetarian).

What this provincial farce is actually about, well, it is stated—relatively bluntly—on p. 5 (my emphases):

With a parental contribution of currently 3.90 €, the school children [sic] pay about 66% of the actual costs (of 5.90 €); without the envisaged price increase and in consideration of the actual costs of 6.50 € per meal, the parental contribution would be reduced to about 60%; with an increase to 4.40 €, the parental contribution remains about the same at 67.7%. A further increase to €4.80 raises the parental share to 73.8%, provided that the caterer’s prices do not rise further (which is rather unlikely).

It is obvious that calculus isn’t exactly Ms. Donnermeyer-Weisser’s strength, so I would like to help her out here and explain what is being proposed:

• We can see that my above-mentioned statement that the parents currently already bear 2/3 of the costs is correct.

• As can be seen from the paragraph quoted above, the actual costs per meal are 6.50 €, i.e., the caterers would have to ‘digest’ a decrease of their profits of 6% per meal—without municipal action.

• Within the framework of the proposed price hikes to 4.40 € in 2023/2024 and 4.80 in 2024/2025, the profit margin of the caterers per meal served will increase by almost 12% (currently parents bear 66% of the costs, from 2024/2025 then 73.8%). At the same time, caterers may significantly cut costs by reducing food choice from three menu lines to one.

The follow-up sentence about the possible further increase in caterer costs can only be understood as ‘ironic’ (I suppose).

The situation is similar in the day-care centres, where it is proposed to increase the own contribution, which has varied until now, to €4.20 initially (2023/2024) and to €4.60 from the following kindergarten year.

We can therefore see that this draft resolution is primarily about a massive increase in costs, which in large parts (cf. p. 3) were not only borne entirely by the parents, but whose costs were also in many cases below the maximum limit of € 3.90 per meal. Incidentally, an own contribution of €4.20 corresponds to price increases of almost 8% (2023/2024) and 18% (2024/2025).

George Orwell Sends his Regards

The wording in which Ms. Donnermeyer-Weisser’s Education Authority presents this can only be described as Orwellian (with due apologies to Mr. Orwell). Here’s more legalese from p. 5, with my emphases added and relevant questions or comments in square parentheses:

In order to simplify the handling of meals [for whom?] from ordering to serving, only one menu line is to be offered at primary schools and the municipal day-care centres from the school year 2023/2024. This serves to simplify administration and reduce red tape [whose?]. In order to achieve improvement in quality of primary school and day-care centre meals and, at the same time, to keep prices down, the processes around the provision of meals must be streamlined [this is utterly misleading: the measure proposes a massive increase in the parental contribution; also, the two aspects—quality and price—have little to do with how the private caterer conforms with contractual services; it’s about negotiating these items with the contractor, not about a priori increasing prices]. From an economic point of view, the distribution of one menu line only offers the advantage that the caterers have lower procurement and processing costs and can therefore offer better conditions [as noted above, perhaps Ms. Donnermeyer-Weisser should take a couple of Econ 101 courses to determine facts before embarking on this wonderful negotiation line]. This also facilitates the caterer’s planning of the required quantities that must be purchased, as well as it entails savings on the administrative side [the text doesn’t explain whether these assumed savings occur on the caterer’s side or on the side of the Education Authority]. Since the intersection of different eating habits points to a vegetarian menu, all school lunches should be vegetarian in the future [this is a statement without evidence]. Through the resulting one size fits all approach, it becomes easier to convey equality with one menu line only (as all children get the same food) [would this also apply to people whose convictions or beliefs ‘require’, e.g., observation of additional rules in food preparation?], and furthermore, this aspect strengthens the social function of food intake. Moreover, since good quality meat is a significant cost driver, the proposal of the vegetarian menu line also contributes to keeping costs down [again: for whom?].

Incidentally, those who would like to take another succinct look at Appendix 2 will find out what is being played here:

As is evident, the envisaged increases of the parental contribution (which the school department describes as ‘municipal savings’) are actually about pushing down the municipal school lunch subsidies below their pre-Corona level within the next two to three years.

By the way, if you take a quick look at Appendix 3, you can also find out where the Ms. Donnermeyer-Weisser’s Education Authority gets their ideas from: from the consulting firm schmidt evaluation, which specifically (on slide 12) identifies the goals of social, economic, and ecological responsibilities—which is to say, ESG aims—in Freiburg.

In an of themselves, these could be laudable goals, but they are being concealed and, as the above account shows, are also being argued quite ‘creatively’ (some would call this ‘lying’) on the part of the Freiburg Education Authority and Ms. Donnermeyer-Weisser.

At the (almost) end of my examination of these facts, however, the following question arises: ‘in the past’ there were often communal canteens whose—admittedly not always perfect (ahem)—food was then delivered throughout the municipality.

Whether this was (is) a ‘better’ system, however, is a moot point, because the questions are these: first, wouldn’t it make more economic sense to move away from the public-private partnership of the current system (with the municipality outsourcing school lunches to a private caterer while forcing the parents to pay a considerable share of the costs) towards large-scale communal kitchens?

Second, the current proposals not only envisage a massive price hike for Freiburg parents, but they also entail a drastic restriction of choice. Until now, it was at least the case that the costs were deriving from having these options.

Ms. Donnermeyer-Weisser’s draft resolution, however, provides for a massive increase in prices while, at the same time, it also introduces a drastic reduction of the offer (by 2/3), to say nothing about rendering school lunches a compulsory obligation for all.

It would appear to me that before embarking on such a course, it would be not warranted to thoroughly examine the catering contracts—and the books of these private caterers—via the procurement processes. It would also be relevant, if not required, to add an ‘opt-out’ option for those parents who would rather prefer to spend their own contribution by preparing school and day-care meals at home.

Sidenote: I state this as a parent of two and know a lot about private and public day-care and primary school lunch options in at least two comparable countries (Switzerland and Norway). Just do the math: if you pay somewhere around 5 € or US$ 5 per workday = 25 € per week or around 100 € per month, I’m pretty sure it’s quite possible to arrange for a school lunch of one’s choosing for the same amount of money (or less).

A Few Words About Legacy and Alternative Media Coverage

If one looks at media coverage of this issue across the board, the following facts stand out after a thorough examination of the issue:

All media reports refer—if one is fortunate—to the piece in the Badische Zeitung dated 20 Sept. 2022.

An in-depth analysis of the municipal proposal by Ms. Donnermeyer-Weisser is missing in all media reports.

However, as a cursory glance at the Badische Zeitung’s archives indicates, the issue had already surfaced more than a month earlier, as evidenced by an op-ed with the telling title ‘Compromise Instead of Dogma: School Meals’ by one Joachim Röderer, dated 4 Aug. 2022. Appearing in the middle of the summer holidays, though, diffusion was quite certainly limited. Still, one may at least expect that those who work for legacy media outlets to be able to use an online search engine…(apparently, this supposition is up for debate, too).

Add to this the fact that the BW24 and the Münchner Merkur articles linked at the beginning of this article, both dated 22 Sept. 2022, were clearly published several weeks before the short article that appeared in Germany’s leading tabloid, the Bild-Zeitung last week (which, unsurprisingly, is devoid of almost all details). If you have looked at their ‘reporting’, you can compare it with the details discussed here in order to form your own opinion of the truth of my statement.

Finally, I would like to point out the ‘reporting’ by German-language ‘alternative’ media portals such as Wochenblick (see here, 13 Oct. 2022, or my above-linked piece from two days ago) or Welt25.de (see here, 14 Oct. 2022), which are both, and massively so, engaging in cheap agit-prop.

By the way, here is a small comparison of the reporting by ‘legacy’ vs. ‘alternative’ media:

There is a heated discussion on Facebook about the price increase and the vegetarian dishes. ‘Yesterday, it was the subject of a parents’ meeting. Now there is only vegetarian or halal. I am at a loss for words’, writes one user. ‘School lunches are a decades-old issue—it’s obviously not getting any better’, comments someone else another. ‘I find this quite unacceptable…everyone must still be allowed to decide for themselves what they would like to eat’, reads another posting. A study also shows that vegetarian diets can often cause children to become underweight. Others, however, do not find the proposal negative. ‘Don’t understand the problem, it’s super healthy food’, or ‘Super! Consistently in the right direction’, are the opposing voices of other users.

In another report, one reads the following (emphases omitted):

City Hall spokesperson Sebastian Wolfrum justifies the motion by claiming that it is necessary because of rising prices. ‘Therefore, in order to keep the cost of school meals and its quality in line, measures must be taken’, he claimed. If only one dish is offered henceforth, he said, this will primarily reduce the administrative workload and the effort involved in serving meals, which will save costs. However, the city wants to ‘continue to offer a high-quality meals’, he continued. He did not mention that the adjusting screws that supposedly have to be turned ‘happen to lead’ to the implementation of a core part of the Green agenda.

A mother whose son plays football criticised the move: ‘Children need a balanced diet for their development, which includes, in my opinion, animal protein.’ By contrast, Jakob Wehner from the Association of German School and Daycare Cateres, declared in the best manner of someone who knows better [in oberlehrerhafter Manier]: ‘From a nutritional point of view, meat must not necessarily included in a [a child’s or adolescent’s] diet.’ According to vice-chairman [of what it isn’t said] Sebastian Kölsch, a survey of 1,030 participants allegedly showed ‘that, for the most part, they had nothing against vegetarian food’.

The first snippet, by the way, appeared in BW24 (legacy media), the second one in Wochenblick (‘alternative’ media).

Moralising Comes First, Food Will be Served Later

More relevant questions, such as why a drastic increase in parental contributions and a simultaneous 2/3 reduction in catering services does not lead to cost reductions, are left out.

Both the legacy and ‘alternative’ media engage in cheap agit-prop instead of reporting on the issue. Both clearly are way off target, so to speak.

Questions about the costs or considerations to change the text of the public tender are not even asked.

Possible solutions, such as a return to communal canteens (if they were cheaper) or an ‘opt-out’ option are obviously not up for debate for the Freiburg Education Authority.

Finally, we must call out the Orwellian choice of words, which only offers ‘neoliberal dogma’, now combined with green-sparkled compulsory obligations without options. There is no ‘change’, but more of the same, not even (very) old wine in new skins.

One is almost tempted to call this yet another example of our Upside Down condition (and hence the variation of Bertolt Brecht’s well-known phrase that ‘A Hungry Man Has No Conscience’ (Erst kommt das Fressen, dann die Moral) that I chose as a title for the last chapter.

In the end, this provincial farce leaves a starkly stale aftertaste: this is yet another tale of local politicians who obviously don’t give a damn about the people they pretend to represent while they are decidedly concerned about the economic situation of private entrepreneurs (in this case caterers).

At what point can we finally move from complaining about ‘these politicians’ to move towards a renewal of our societies? We must talk about popular sovereignty, civic participation, and return to holding ‘elected’ politicians accountable.

Continued complacency and failure to do so will only make matters worse in the future.