Rising costs put school canteen operators in a dilemma

 

School canteen operators say they are trying to cut costs as they cannot sell beyond what is stipulated in their contracts. (Bernama pic)

PETALING JAYA: School canteen operators in Selangor are in a bind.

Although the increase in the prices of raw materials has resulted in higher costs, they cannot pass them on to their customers as the prices have been fixed in their contracts.

Several operators told FMT they hoped to see their contracts updated to reflect the current situation.

Said Khairudin, 41, who runs a canteen at a school in Semenyih: “All I can do is reduce the amount of more expensive food items, but overall, sales will still decline.”.

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He said his contract would only expire at the end of the year.

Ng, 37, who runs a canteen at a primary school in Puchong, urged the government to review the payment rates to operators for the Supplementary Meal Plan (RMT).

He said the RM2.50 rate for each meal was no longer viable as the canteen operators were required to use fresh and quality ingredients.

Noraziyan, 36, who runs a canteen at a primary school in Shah Alam, said her profit had dropped because of the rising cost of food items.

She said the canteen operators not only had to cope with the spike in the prices of raw materials, but were only recovering after schools were closed during the various movement control orders.

“I had to borrow money from relatives as I needed capital to operate once schools reopened,” she said.

Ng said he was glad rental was waived during the school closure, but added that some canteen operators had to pay more to hire workers because of a labour shortage.

“In the past, the pay was RM50 to RM60 a day. Now, it has gone up to RM100, and that’s just for regular staff, and not cooks,” he said. - FMT