If you’ve ever needed to stave off fourth-period starvation or quench post-practice thirst, odds are you’ve relied on one of the 18 vending machines on campus at Fountain Valley High School (FVHS). Have you ever considered where that dollar you gladly exchanged for a Gatorade goes?
For a Gatorade, the answer is simple. All beverage vending machines on campus are owned and stocked by PepsiCo, the corporation that owns the Gatorade, Aquafina, Propel and Bubly brands sold on campus. PepsiCo collects money from the machines and pays the school a 30 percent commission of the sales. This system applies to all the comprehensive high schools in the Huntington Beach Union High School District (HBUHSD).
“The portion of the beverage sales that comes back to the school goes to the Associated Student Body (ASB) and is then used for school-wide ASB events such as dances, lunch-time activities, [and] athletics,” said FVHS Assistant Principal of Activities and Athletics Kelly Skon.
Baron Banner contacted the financial offices of all six comprehensive high schools in the HBUHSD seeking records of beverage vending revenue. The FVHS financial office did not provide this information, but it was available at Huntington Beach High School (HBHS) and Edison High School (EHS). According to Assistant Principal Jason Ross, EHS has received less than $200 in vending machine sales this school year. HBHS ASB Bookkeeper Joyce Walder reported that in the past five months, the school received $1145.04 in commission on sales from its three beverage machines. FVHS has ten beverage vending machines.
Beverage sales revenue hasn’t always been distributed in this way, though. Prior to this fiscal year, vendors sent revenue from both food and beverage vending at all school sites in the district directly to the HBUHSD Food and Nutrition Services Department.
“Food Services collected all this money, and they could spend it wherever it was needed,” said FVHS Principal Morgan Smith. “For example, if Westminster [High School] brought in twice as much sales on Gatorade as Fountain Valley, but a stove broke at Fountain Valley, that money could be sent to help us fix that. It was just wherever the need was, that’s where the money went.”
Last year, however, beverage vending contracts at all six schools were renegotiated so that each school site would directly receive the commission on sales made on its campus. Snack and ice cream vending machines remain under operation via a contract between the HBUHSD and two local vendors who service all six schools and send commissions to Food and Nutrition Services.
“The terms of the food and ice cream contracts expire this fiscal year,” said Smith. “After that, we’re hoping to negotiate new contracts so that sales from all the vending machines on our site go back to us.”
Baron Banner requested food vending revenue from Food and Nutrition Services Administrator Lauren Teng, but did not receive a reply. Baron Banner is currently waiting for the HBUHSD Public Information Office to respond to a public records request seeking this information, and will report on it when it becomes available.
While you won’t know until then where exactly your Funyuns’ funds go, you can be sure that your Gatorade dollar helps to purchase the glow sticks you wave at the Glow Show, and the confetti that gets stuck in you hair after an assembly.
This article was originally published in the February 2019 issue of the Baron Banner.
ความคิดเห็น