New Jersey school district stands behind ban on lunch deliveries

RIDGEWOOD, N.J.—The response to the Ridgewood School District's new ban on outside vendor lunch deliveries to village schools has amped up—30 impassioned residents attended last week's Board of Education (BOE) meeting—but the district isn't budging.

Superintendent Daniel Fishbein said no vendors proposed a solution that addressed his concern about the non-compete clause with Pomptonian Food Service, the district's contracted food management service provider since 1987.

"Each of the proposals that have come to me, I believe, had to do with leaving lunches behind, and that doesn't work," said Fishbein, whose decision was first announced in a letter earlier this month, about a week before the ban began.