Tainan City will fully subsidize primary and secondary school lunch funds starting from the 115th school year to create nutritious and delicious local flavors

Starting from the 2015 school year, primary and secondary school lunch funds have been fully subsidized. Through a high proportion of self-catered lunches and a central kitchen, students’ daily meals are professionally designed by nutritionists to ensure that lunches are nutritious, healthy and delicious. Fruit and dairy products have also been increased to 8 fruits and 6 dairy products per month, and the proportion of local fruits and vegetables has been gradually increased, so that children can eat "Tainan-flavored" lunch every day.

In the first week of school, each school used their creativity to serve up special special meals. Yongkang Elementary School uses auspicious dish names to string together blessings for the new semester: the main course "Chicken with Scallion Oil" means "smart", and "Assorted Peanuts" symbolizes "good things happen"; it is paired with colorful peppers and bamboo shoots that mean "success in school", and celery and cabbage soup that means "studying well". Finally, a big apple is used to wish the children safety.

Dongyuan Junior High School of the Central Kitchen School takes "full nutrition" as its motto and prepares braised chicken leg steak, tuna mixed with sprouts, and winter melon and pork ribs soup. It is paired with low-fat yogurt after the meal to provide students with high-calcium nutrition. Group meal schools are no exception. The Houjia Junior High School, supplied by Jiacheng Food Factory, uses chicken wings to symbolize "flying high" and is paired with vegetable vermicelli and white radish bone soup, which is both nutritious and delicious.

Mayor Huang Weizhe said that Tainan’s current ratio of self-operated and jointly provided meals by central kitchens reaches 94.5%, the highest among the six cities. Comprehensive lunch subsidies are on the way for the new school year, which not only helps parents save meal expenses, but also puts resources into their children’s plates, from adding more fruits and dairy products, using seasonal local ingredients, to strengthening safety checks on daily ingredients, so that children can eat nutritiously and healthily and parents can feel more at ease.

Education Secretary Zheng Xinhui said that in the new school year, in order to ensure the quality, hygiene and safety of lunches, the Education Bureau will continue to work with school nutritionists to continuously improve the quality of lunches through menu design review, chef cooking skills improvement, diversified procurement mechanism guidance and third-level food safety inspections. Teacher and student satisfaction surveys on school lunches will also continue to be conducted, and teachers and students’ dining experience and feedback will be incorporated into the menu and meal quality improvement reference. After lunch is fully subsidized, in order to meet the lunch preparation and supply needs of each school, each school can still innovatively plan its own lunch features after discussion through the school lunch committee.