The lunch box industry has been devastated by the national trend of providing free lunches for school children. Portland is one of the latest to provide free food, resulting in mass layoffs.

“Me and two hundred of us got let go,” Milton Freedman said.

Freedman had worked at Stanley Lunch Boxes for nearly thirty years before declining lunch box sales took his job.

“I’ve been there for it all. The Superman lunch boxes, the The Fonz boxes, the She-Ra Princess of Power boxes, and the The Partridge Family boxes. Back then, kids started each year with a new lunch box but not now.”

As Freedman packed his personal belongings into surplus pink Barbie lunch boxes, Freedman talked about his last hope.

“When they started sending food home with the kids for weekends, we thought we could sell weekend boxes, but they give the kids backpacks full of food. Our lunch boxes only have room for a sandwich, a little bag of carrots, a cookie, and a thermos. Not a spaghetti and meatballs dinner.”

When Portland Public Schools spokesperson Anya Weigh was asked about the impact of free lunches on manufacturing jobs she was not sympathetic.

“They can learn to code,” Weigh said.