VENTURA : School, Pizza Chain Cook Up Meal Plan

To entice students not to bolt off campus for lunch, Buena High School in Ventura on Monday began selling Pizza Hut pepperoni pies in its cafeteria.

The student body, which already had its choice of three styles of frozen pizza, quickly bought up all 60 of the 6-inch pizzas, which, at $2 each, cost less than the chain’s $2.99-with-a-soda luncheon special.

“It looks like this will be real successful,” said Mary Jane Davis, an aide in the Ventura Unified School District’s food service department.

Assistant Food Service Director Noreen Heidemann said the experiment in importing fresh pizzas daily from the Pizza Hut on Main Street is aimed at drumming up cafeteria sales. Only about one-third of the school’s 2,000 students hit the lunch line each day, with the rest either brown-bagging it or leaving campus for a fast-food meal, she said.

In its junior high and high schools, the district has been selling frozen French bread pizzas and 4- by 6-inch slices of Oh Boy pizza for $1.15 each, and a 6-inch frozen Chicago Brothers pizza for $1.75.

The profit margin is slimmer on the Pizza Hut pizzas, which cost the district $1.35 each, than on the frozen personal pizzas, which cost 75 cents. Cafeteria managers, who are credited for unsold Pizza Hut pies, are banking on volume to make up the revenue.

Heidemann said the Pizza Hut pies will be sold at other schools if the program is successful.