HISTORY OF JAPANESE SCHOOL LUNCH
The earliest Japanese school lunch program was initiated
in a school in Yamagata prefecture in 1889. The monks
who built the local school began offering rice balls,
grilled fish and pickles to children from poor families.
This idea spread across the country, though it was temporarily
suspended during the food shortages of World War
II (WWII). It was reinstated in December of 1947 with
the aid by Licensed Agency for Relief in Asia (LARA),
United Nation’s International Children Energy Fund
(UNICEF), and other organizations. Through their activities,
approximately 2.9 million children benefited from
school lunch programs in 1947. The School Lunch Act
was enacted in 1954, officially making school lunch as a
part of education system in Japan with the aim to enrich
school life and promoting a spirit of cooperation by instilling
proper dietary habits and its knowledge. Later,
this system expanded to all the Compulsory Education
Schools in 1956.
Following the WWII, bread was the staple food of
school lunch over two decades. After which, they officially
introduced rice in school lunch in 1976.