Rising food costs have little effect on campus meals

The cost of the dining plan at Portland State is set to rise by $59 next fall comparative plan, and PSU Dining plans to figure out whether prices will increase elsewhere after setting contracts with food providers this summer.

PSU officials say prices for most campus food items will be minimally affected, even though prices for food have been on the rise throughout the nation.

The average price of food has climbed this year, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics, but Stephen Wadsworth, food service director for PSU, said that campus prices will not change until the beginning of the next academic year.

How much prices will rise this fall is still unknown, Wadsworth said, as contracting will be done in the summer.

However, John Eckman, director of PSU Housing and Transportation Services, said a food plan that this year costs $1,057 per term, will cost $1,116 next year. They will alter the food plan slightly next year, which would affect costs.

Dining Services contracts are set in advance for the entire school year, which Wadsworth said helps keep prices stable and less vulnerable to market price fluctuations.

Even though there are efforts to keep prices down, Wadsworth said, “Food prices are not going to go down in the near future.”

U.S. food prices showed an increased seasonally adjusted annual rate (SAAR) of 5.3 percent from January to March, according to a report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

According to the bureau, the food index rose 4.9 percent in all of 2007. The SAAR measures adjusted data that is based on seasonality factors and gives a more accurate way to compare monthly data.

Change in food costs on campus were smaller from the 2006-07 school year to this year, Eckman said, but the lower price change was due to the increase in the number of people enrolled in the program and had less to do with any changes in the national price of food.

Wadsworth said that Dining Services will continue to contract with its suppliers to keep costs as low as possible for students. Part of this effort, he said, will involve buying as much food from local producers as possible. Since about 17 percent of the increase in food is attributed to transportation costs, according to Wadsworth, this should help slow further increases.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the average American spent $1,926 on food in 2007 and is already on track to spend an average of $2,013 in 2008.

The Portland-Salem food price data for 2007 shows that prices are slightly higher than the U.S. average for that year, but lower than other large U.S. cities.

This reality of increased transportation costs is driving up prices of processed foods more than others because of more stops, according to Bob Stallman, president of the American Farm Bureau Federation.

The use of corn and other crops for the production of ethanol for transportation fuel is attributed to the increase in food costs as well, according to the USDA. The amount of corn going to ethanol production increased from 12 million acres in 2006 to 90.5 million acres in 2007.

With prices increasing through the country and the world, Wadsworth said, it is a goal within PSU dining to maintain as low of prices as possible for students on campus.

“We don’t want to be the highest priced show in town,” he said.