Hot meals in Irish schools

The Irish government has a goal of providing a hot meal in primary school for every child in the country by 2025 or at the latest, before 2030. The Healthy Ireland document on “Nutrition Standards for Hot School Meals” lays out the reason for this initiative.

“The Hot School Meals operates in schools and aims to provide regular, nutritious food to children who are unable, by lack of good quality food, to take full advantage of the education provided for them”

The scheme started out with 30 DEIS schools in 2019 and is now currently offered in over 2,000 schools across the country at the time of writing this. There are quite a number of hot school meal providers across the country that have sprung up or have been catering in a slightly different capacity but have now taken this task on.

How does the hot meal programme work in schools?

There are a number of hot school meal providers across the country. Once funding has been approved, my understanding is schools are free to choose their own provider.

I have come across 2 main options:

1. the first and most common is where the company delivers the food to the school, they employ a staff member in each school who has the responsibility of reheating the food and delivering it to classrooms. Children and their parents pre-order food on an app and there is generally a large selection of choices every day.

2. The second option, not so common, is where the company installs a kitchen in the school and makes the food onsite every day.

The government pays €3.20 per meal per day. In my son’s school of 550 pupils, that amounts to €8,800 a week or €35,200 a month. A lot of money for the school meals providers on a regular basis every month. Are the government getting value for this money?

I have asked my social media followers for feedback on their experiences with the hot school meals. Here are some of their very many comments :

What you have to say about hot school meals in schools:

These are actual comments from my followers!

On the plus side:

they’re loving the hot meals
quality seems good. Kids like them.
never a complaint about them only the spice bag was too spicy!
my son enjoys them
my boys love them but they’d eat anything! Lots of veg in our ones. Overkill of sweetcorn though!
they love them

On the not so plus side!

wish there would be a proper review of the quality, presentation and nutritional value of the food given. Different companies are producing very different standards.
great excitement at first but he’s gone off them very quick. Anything that has bread is inevitably soggy
still packing a packed lunch as the choice is limited and it gets boring
I’m still sending a packed lunch as they (hot meals) are hit and miss
they (the school) changed company and since then it went downhill
what started off as a yes has turned into a nah
mine is not too into the hot lunches. He might have a couple of bites of the hot lunch but I definitely need to pack him a lunch every day
get hot lunches but some of them aren’t filling enough so send in a sandwich too. He’s only going into senior infants so if he isn’t full after a lunch now, I’d hate to think what he’s gonna be like in 6th class!
My kids don’t have it and delighted they don’t - terrible quality and tiny for senior kids
my guy gets a hot lunch but would normally eat a bigger portion at home so he is still hungry
it’s been hit or miss
they are discussing mass produced crap. They should have taken the money and had a kitchen built for schools locally
my kids are getting the hot lunches but really don’t like them. The supplier in my kids school is gross.
I thought it would be more homemade rather than processed sauces
it has taken me a year of no hot lunches to get him back eating some of the food
not great to be honest - very beige, salty and white. My kids won’t eat most of it
kids won’t eat them
very high in salt
so much waste. dislike lack of control over what my kids are eating and nutrient content
quality of meat/chicken is questionable
they are hated by the majority of kids in our school. We send a packed lunch instead
very poor. My children are always complaining that it’s burnt or salty
and the packaging sent home every day can’t be recycled

I have spoken to a lot of parents and teachers about the hot school meals. The majority of people are on board with the idea of supplying a hot meal, especially to children most in need - generally those in DEIS schools. But has the government sacrificed the quality of the food for those who need it most to feed the masses - even those who don’t need or want it?

As you can see from the floods of comments I received - there seems to be a real issue with the quality of the food being offered as well as the portion size and the packaging.

It seems that there is a wide discrepancy between the quality of the food supplied by the various hot food companies.

My thoughts on the matter? I think the government need to :

be much stricter about vetting the food companies for quality
insist on Irish produce as much as possible - especially meat, chicken and fish
increase the spend per meal from €3.20 as I do accept they are tight margins for the food companies to work within
consider whether every child in Ireland truly needs a hot meal in school? Many families were doing just fine previously. So schools that are in higher socio economic areas could forgo their hot meals and the government could invest that money into putting kitchens into DEIS schools. Then the kids could eat meals made from scratch, on site like in the UK.

What are your thoughts?