Hot topic: Are school meals a good idea or waste of resources and time?
Handing And Aherne Lydia Hot Bag Milward Heinhold Teacher Out Provided Elodie To Pupils And By Fermoy Rebecca Together Lunch Picture: Cara Educate O'hare Twins At The Meals Eddie Bardyszewski
The Hot School Meals Programme in primary schools is a national one, but what arrives at a child’s table very much depends on their school and their school’s supplier, with little uniformity across the sector.
Some schools heat food on site, other schools have hot food delivered.
Some schools allow children to opt-in and opt-on on different days, others do not.
Some schools send waste home, others fear this could be dangerous.
Some principals laud the scheme, others question the national rollout.
The School Meals Programme is administered and funded by the Department of Social Protection, introduced in 2019 as a small pilot of 30 schools with 2,200 primary schools now eligible to receive hot school meals, in respect of 345,000 children.
The Department of Social Protection provides the funding directly to the schools, who are then required to procure the provision of the food in compliance with government rules and regulations.
“My ambition is that a child born in Ireland today will be guaranteed access to a hot meal by the time they start school. The major expansion I am announcing today means we are now well on course to achieve that objective,” announced Social Protection Minister Heather Humphreys last year.
But is access on a daily basis going to result in huge waste issues?
Is it access or forced feeding?
Should a parent have the choice to vary their child’s diet throughout the week, sometimes opting for a packed lunch, sometimes not?
In Fermoy Educate Together, National School if parents forget to make an order via an app, but have opted into the scheme, the child receives what is referred to as a ‘standard’ meal.
Anyone who has opted into the scheme must get a hot meal.
Principal Toni McGuire sees this as a positive as no child misses out, and that is indeed the aim of the scheme, that every child gets a hot meal every day.
“Some students have opted out completely, preferring their food from home.
"In our school it is either all in, or all out, with no in-between.
"The school tells the department what has been spent each year and anything left over is deducted the following year.”
This is not the case in all schools or all suppliers.
Jill Bradbury is the owner of a supplier that has been providing meals to schools for many years.
“We all want to cut down on waste. I want to put more facilities in place to cancel lunches quicker.
"Our turnaround is short anyway because everything is so fresh.
"I don’t want waste. It’s the wrong thing to be doing. You order what you want, and you can absolutely opt-in or out from day to day.”
Parents can simply press the ‘none’ option on any day they like, she explains.
This echoes the sentiments of Ger Killian the managing director of another supplier.
“I would rather adjust stock than have food dumped. So far, the percentages turning off days with us is tiny. So, we must be doing ok.
"Parents just go into our calendar and pop on and off the days.”
She contends that the size of the supplier matters.
“It is easier for us to stock adjust than a small supplier. It’s difficult for them to manage fluctuations.
"If they have to make 5,000 meals on a Friday (as treats are allowed once a week), but they only have 1,000 orders on say a Tuesday — they still have to fund the same number of staff and vans on a Tuesday as they do on a Friday.
"So, the running cost gets out of hand trying to adjust the balance — as we can't adjust pricing like a deli, shop, or take-away can.
"We have to be able to budget to €3.20 per child and can't pass the cost loss to the customer.”
He says it is the school who decides if parents can have the choice to opt in and out during the week.
Colm O’Brien has been a school lunch provider for decades.
He believes the explosion of hot school meals is great, but its expansion creates considerable logistical challenges on the ground.
“The ministers get all the plaudits and get re-elected, but it falls to guys like me to run it.”
He is adamant that it is a five-day programme, all-in, or all-out.
“We are not an al a carte programme. We have 14 meals to choose from every day. Parents log on up to midnight on Friday to change their orders for the next week.
"We are using three tonnes of pasta a week and employing 250 staff.
"We can’t have children opting in and out on given days as we have to put some parameters around how we can operate.
"Otherwise, it is not sustainable.”
His company has 31,000 meals travelling around the country overnight, supplying school children from Dundalk to Cork.
In terms of waste, he says they have always had a waste system in schools with specific staff there to sort it.
He is fearful of suppliers and schools simply sending it home.
“That is the height of bad practice in that the food should not be heated again. If you buy a cooked chicken, you are told to eat it within a short time frame. It for this reason that we have a label on our boxes warning families against re-heating anything.”
Responsibility for sourcing the meals is a matter for the board of management of each school in line with regulations.
Some principals feel that is putting added pressures on schools, a pressure they don’t need, requiring an expertise they don’t have.
According to a spokesperson: “The Department [of Social Protection] does have an oversight role and conducts audits and desk assessments of schools.”
Day to day however, it is down to the school and the supplier.
Principal of a Deis school in Waterford, Brian Barron, says the programme is a good one, and he certainly sees the benefits for students.
“My issue is not with the providers, who are excellent, it’s with how departments use these schemes to get votes.
"They were very vocal about the free book scheme too for instance, but this year they have cut the budget for each student, but we don’t hear about that.”
He is also irritated by the lack of involvement of the Department of Education in the nutritional content of the food provided, despite its supposed interest in student welfare, and believes it should be overseen centrally.
"I gave feedback to our provider about having too many potato cubes and they changed it for me.
"They are very good but it’s another example of the department shirking their responsibilities.”
He feels positively towards the scheme for his school but says it is far from perfect.
“Even in a Deis setting there is a lot of waste.
"Food providers will say you can’t order nothing because the whole idea is to have a free meal for everyone, so a child who doesn’t order anything will get a bowl of rice or pasta or whatever.”
He also questions the blanket roll-out of the scheme.
“We are in a funding crisis right now. There are some schools who won’t be able to afford to run the ovens to heat the meals up for their students.
"Certain schools would love the autonomy to spend money on where it is really needed, and not all students need school meals.
Maura O’Riordan, principal of Educate Together National School in Cork, agrees.
“When it was rolled out, I thought it was an absolute waste of money as there was so much more, we could spend the money on.
"People say it improves attendance and punctuality, but I haven’t seen that.”
However, she concedes that the children do eat the food and enjoy the meals.
"We have started to send the leftovers home so parents can see what their children are really eating.”
The principal would have preferred to spend the money elsewhere.
“We could have fed children who needed a meal.
"This must be hot food which means there is a lot of starch and carbohydrates. Not every child wants that.”
The principal says they are totally underfunded and overly reliant on capitation.
“Our insurance costs €11,000. We get €2,000 a week for hot food.
"I can only imagine what could be achieved with that educationally, which is why we are here.
"We are left with so little money for resources. There is so little left for education.
"If we were a household, we wouldn’t be ringing Deliveroo for food if we couldn’t pay the electricity bill.”
She does not feel it should be her job to monitor the food without outside assistance.
“I have no notion of monitoring the nutritional value of the food,” she says. “I never asked for it. I don’t have the expertise.”
Conversely, Regina Kelliher, principal of St Columba’s Boys’ National School in Douglas, Cork, says she is delighted with the scheme.
“Parents can opt out any day with our suppliers. Some children will only get something on a Friday.
"I am happy with the nutritional value of the food. We didn’t have the scheme on the first two days back, and the children are really excited now to have it again.”
The principal sees very particular advantages from having the hot meals.
“Kids in our special classes are trying new foods which is excellent.
"Teachers have noticed children watching their peers, giving different options a go.
"It has become a lovely source of conversation. They look forward to it, especially the kids in the older classes.
"Mostly their boxes go home empty. I don’t have any major concern with portion size and the cultural perspective is great.
"We have curries and dals to cater for many tastes, and it is a free scheme.”
Colm O’Brien, supplier, believes the ultimate responsibility for the nutritional value of the food is down to parents, not schools and not suppliers.
“All of our 24 menu items are allowable under the government scheme.
"Our view is that everything is available on shop shelves every day of the week.
"The parent oversees choosing. It should be the parent’s responsibility. Mammy and daddy were feeding the child in June; this is no different. Make the right decision for your child.“
He warns that this is a changing space with far more specific demands coming from parents, and many more suppliers coming on board.
“We are very happy to be part of it because we have been around forever. We are also happy to lead the charge but there are considerable challenges.”
The Department of Education says it “engages with the Department of Social Protection in relation to its operation of, and future planning for, the school meals programme.”
Schools are not required to join the programme, they say, whilst adding that there has been “a very strong response to each round of expressions of interest and the number of participating schools has increased significantly”.
Funding under the programme is solely for food. It is not permitted for funding to be used for other purposes.
The Department of Social Protection says it is the school’s responsibility to administer the programme.
“The primary relationship is between the school and school meal supplier. The department only provides funding for meals that have been provided.
"Depending on the school size, some suppliers may give parents the option to select hot meals on specific days if they wish to, but all suppliers are obliged to offer meals for every school day.
"It is up to each school to choose a supplier that best suits their needs.”