SALT LAKE CITY — Erica Lukes and other Utah parents were outraged when their children had their deep dish pizzas and other food taken and thrown away at their elementary school after a cashier said they owed money on their lunch accounts.

Lukes said taking the $2 meals from about 30 students was “humiliating and demoralizing.”

“People are upset, obviously, by the way this has been handled because it’s really needless and quite mean,” she said. “Regardless if it’s $2, $5, you don’t go about rectifying a situation with a balance by having a child go through that.”

The Salt Lake City School District apologized and said it was investigating what happened at Uintah Elementary and working to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

“This was a mistake,” district spokesman Jason Olsen said. “There shouldn’t have been food taken away from these students once they went through that line.”

The students whose lunches were thrown out were given milk and fruit, a standard practice when students don’t have lunch money.