The objective of this study was to investigate the calorie and protein adequacies, to establishoffe operation model and the operational difficulties of the School-Lunch Program in Campinas, Brazil. Six schools randomly selected (1,237 children) were investigated. Calorie and protein consumption were estimated by weighed records. A model food project was developed in order to analyse the city food-service operation. The adequacy values were very low: 48.6 +/- 17.3% for energy and 52.7 +/- 17.2% for protein. The Tukey test indicated that schools did not differ regarding adequacies (alpha = 0.005). The results suggested that the efficiency and/or the impact of Campinas program may be limited by both, lack of resources and several operation failures such as: preparation of large amount of food which is not served to the children; the type of the food served; the ineffective administrative controls; the low supervision frequency, low school garden production and inefficient staff training; as well as the lack of food quality control, evaluations, community participation, nutritional education had integration with health programs.45167-71