Inviting restaurants into the cafeteria is a way to keep meals affordable. Major food chains have access to bulk foods at bulk pricing. They also have test kitchens that constantly work on ways to make menu items tasty, quick to make and affordable. Fast food restaurants have to keep their costs down because of competition, while prices in school cafeterias have steadily risen since the early 2000s because of labor and food costs. Schools also typically receive funds from the restaurants for leasing space in their buildings and allowing advertising. This can help districts on a tight budget.
Major restaurant chains also use their test kitchens to create uniform procedures for cooking food, testing its quality and keeping the kitchen clean. Restaurants focus on stringent quality control to make sure the food served across a large area is uniform in taste and safe for everyone. If the food doesn't always taste good, customers won't buy it. Restaurants will bring their own stringent food standards to the cafeteria, where students were previously faced with the options of buying cafeteria food, skipping lunch or packing lunch.
Fast food restaurants tend to offer high-calorie, high-salt foods. If the school doesn't pick the restaurant carefully, it could end up with students making terrible food choices. A high-calorie diet leads to childhood obesity, heart problems and to secondary health problems, such as diabetes, sleep apnea and poor immune systems. Schools can prevent problems by including increased learning opportunities in the classroom and the selection of a restaurant that offers healthy food choices.
Allowing restaurants into the school exposes students to commercialism with advertising, free enterprise and capitalism. Students are effectively a captive audience for ads and foods available in the cafeteria. Restaurant advertising and only having the option of fast food can influence a child's thinking and decision-making skills, encourage poor food choices and lead to an overreliance on quick and easy options. On the upside, a working business within the school can serve as an educational model of free enterprise, health and food safety and workplace etiquette.