Nationwide efforts to make faculty and public canteen meals more healthy and extra sustainable usually contain serving much less meat – a change that may additionally provoke political backlash.
That rigidity is more likely to floor once more on Thursday, when EU farm chief Christophe Hansen and Fee vice-president for prosperity Stéphane Séjourné host meals chain actors in Brussels to focus on how public procurement guidelines may steer public kitchens towards extra native and sustainable meals.
The talks – referred to as Meals Dialogue – intention to contribute to the upcoming reform of EU public procurement guidelines, due by the summer time. Final 12 months, Hansen pledged to introduce incentives for public authorities to prioritise native, high quality and natural merchandise of their canteens.
The transfer echoes a non-binding 2024 European Parliament report, which urged a shift away from awarding public contracts solely on the premise of lowest value and referred to as for procurement coverage for use as a lever to advertise more healthy and greener diets.
Such initiatives exist already in a number of EU nations, the place efforts to enhance meals high quality in public kitchens usually revolve round a well-recognized and politically delicate problem: decreasing meat consumption.
Schooling and low payments
When all the pieces works properly, it appears to be like like Mouans-Sartoux.
This village of about 11,000 inhabitants on the outskirts of Cannes, southern France, has been serving 100% natural meals in its faculty canteens since 2012. The meals is provided immediately by a neighborhood farm.
Crucially, mother and father didn’t see their payments enhance. By slicing meat consumption and decreasing meals waste, the municipality managed to offset the upper price of natural produce, as Options Économiques reported. On the identical time, the native authority invested in training, providing cooking lessons and workshops on slicing waste and enhancing vitamin.
The initiative additionally had an influence past the lecture rooms. A decade later, 87% of oldsters mentioned they’ve modified their consuming habits – consuming fewer processed merchandise and meat, and extra greens and natural meals, a examine by the French authorities confirmed. Mouans-Sartoux can be cited on the Fee assembly on Thursday as a mannequin for sustainable public catering.
Throughout the EU, a number of nations have experimented with comparable initiatives. Denmark launched an natural public procurement technique in 2012 geared toward changing public kitchens to natural sourcing. Portugal has required since 2017 that each one public canteens supply a vegetarian choice day by day.
Momentum has accelerated not too long ago. Final month, Slovenia launched a undertaking to extend the share of native meals provided to public establishments to 30%, whereas Poland made it necessary for varsity canteens to serve no less than one vegetarian meal per week.
Final 12 months, Spain introduced that each one colleges should embrace fruit and greens of their lunches and supply vegetarian choices, as a part of efforts to curb rising weight problems charges.
The meat on well being
Meat discount usually proves to be the true sticking level.
Supporters argue it may be justified on well being grounds and as a option to handle prices. Based on IFOAM Organics Europe, the EU umbrella organisation for natural meals and farming, enhancing meals high quality doesn’t essentially imply increased spending. “The answer is to cut back meals waste and redesign menus with much less meat,” senior coverage officer at IFOAM Organics Europe, Laura Sauques, informed Euractiv.
But nationwide experiences present that such a discount can face social and political resistance, usually invoking well being arguments in the wrong way.
In France, faculty canteens have been required since 2019 to supply one vegetarian menu per week. In 2023, nonetheless, the nationwide Parliament rejected a proposal to introduce a every day plant-based choice. Whereas the nation’s well being company has acknowledged {that a} balanced weekly vegetarian menu can meet youngsters’s dietary wants, critics warned of potential deficiencies.
The same debate has emerged in Sweden. Final week, Rural Affairs Minister Peter Kullgren referred to as for “placing an finish to obligatory vegetarian lunches in school,” criticising what he described because the enlargement of a once-weekly initiative to further days. He argued that symbolism was taking priority over youngsters’s precise wants, elevating issues about iron consumption.
For Belgian MEP and livestock farmer Benoît Cassart (Renew), limiting meat raises questions of each well being and social equality. “Many youngsters, particularly from deprived backgrounds, solely get animal protein in school,” he mentioned.
Paolo Patruno, deputy secretary-general of the European meat processing affiliation Clitravi, likewise cautioned towards polarisation. What’s served in class canteens, he famous, sends a broader sign about what individuals are inspired to eat at residence.
He urged Brussels to “keep away from framing the message in a damaging manner” by excluding merchandise reminiscent of meat. “Reopening a divisive debate will result in nothing being achieved,” he mentioned, calling as an alternative for efforts to handle “overconsumption of each sort of meals.”
Maria Simon Arboleas contributed reporting.
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