The Village Snack Bar (more commonly known as the snack bar) is one of the biggest money-making places in Taipei American School (TAS). The snack bar used to have affordable prices and some decent french fries. This has since changed- sorry, the price has changed (and there are no more french fries). At the Snack Bar, you used to be able to get a cookie for 18 New Taiwan Dollars (NTD). Now, prices have hiked up by 55%, making them 28 NTD. These changes don’t seem like much, but the prices have hiked a whole 10 NTD since 2020. So what happened? Don’t we pay enough for school already? Not to mention that the lunch boxes are sold at astronomically high prices. You can buy a box of hard rice with a cold piece of chicken for 210 NTD. That’s outrageously expensive. 

Students make up 90% of the people at TAS. That being said, they are the main customers at the snack bar. These raised prices have caused some distress among the student body. “Quite frankly, the rise in price is outrageous, the snack bar-as its name suggests- is supposed to be a place where students can get snacks and not have to pay a tremendous amount of money for snacks,” Ayden C. (‘26, he/him), a sophomore at TAS, said. “The overall quality of food has also gone down and is tricking clueless kids into spending way more than they should have to pay.” 

But how does the global situation tie into this? Eric Wang (he/him), co-owner of the restaurant Salt & Stone, has seen the impact of global inflation on food firsthand. “Due to rising food costs, prices have inevitably gone up. This often puts restaurants like Salt & Stone in a challenging position, striving to strike a balance between customer price expectations and sustaining a profitable business,” Eric said. “Our price hikes have been modest, with increases only around 10-15% since 2020. Yet, it’s worth noting we held off any price changes until early 2023.” 

So the global situation puts TAS in a hard spot. The management doesn’t want to charge us more than necessary but the question still stands: How do you keep the business profitable without compromising quality alongside it? Restaurants all around the world are increasing prices. Eric revealed that the prices of food hiked 5-6% between 2020 and 2023. Looking around the world, how much is TAS actually shielding their students from the harsh realities of international inflation and how much of the rising food prices are not lining the pockets of admin members but compensating for the large issue around the globe: Inflation.