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School lunches are a common topic when Japanese reminiscence about their school life. There is even a small museum in the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology in Japan (MEXT) where the typical school lunches of each generation are replicated. This exhibition receives favourable reviews from visitors, who make comments like, "It was great for conversation with my child", and, "It brought back memories of those days". In Japan "eating from the same pot" signifies fellowship and bonds, and this phrase can be applied all around the country in the case of school lunches. This article looks into the School Lunch Service, which the Japanese hold so close to their hearts.

Modern school lunch services are widely defined as any sustenance given to children under school administration, but in Japan, it originated from local civilian efforts to provide lunch for poor children at the end of the 19th century. Later on, before and during world wars, school lunches were recommended by the Ministry of Education (MOE) as a way of improving the physical health of school children. Starting from the more accessible major cities, school lunches were provided with the goal of reaching out to as many children as possible, but it was only after the establishment of the School Lunch Law, proclaimed and enacted in 1954 under reconstruction following World War II, that the Japanese school lunch program gained lawful authority and was provided nationwide.

The beginning of charity school lunch services in Japan can be traced to 1889, where lunches were provided by a Buddhist confederation for poverty-stricken children in an elementary school in Tsuruoka City, Yamagata Prefecture. The majority of school lunches in the Meiji (1868-1912) and Taisho (1912-1926) periods were limited to impoverished children and had the effect of encouraging them to attend school. Several examples were also seen in Akita, Shizuoka, Iwate and other prefectures, which were funded by school or district budgets as well as private donations. The meals usually consisted of a white-rice ball and miso (soy bean paste), with occasional pickled vegetables, or hot soups. In a documentary photo, recipient children can be seen eating in the corner of the school kitchen, while better-off classmates ate their packed home-made lunches in the classrooms.