Nan City Councilor questioned the quality of junior high school group meals, and the city government said it would urge the operators to improve

Nan City Councilor Wang Xuanmao today questioned some junior high school students who reported that the group meal dishes were mediocre. Nan City Education Director Zheng Xinhui said that he would ask the school to urge the operators to improve. (Picture taken from South City Council question screen)

Starting this year, all elementary and secondary schools will enjoy free and nutritious lunches. But apart from being “free”, can the quality of the lunches also be taken care of? City Councilor Wang Xuanmao questioned the provision of group meals for junior high schools in the parliament today (23rd). Mayor Huang Weizhe said that in addition to reducing the burden on parents, promoting free nutritious lunches is more important to ensure the quality of students' meals. If teachers and students report that the dishes, portions or quality are poor, the Education Bureau will be asked to understand and discuss improvements with the school and parent association to ensure that the quality of lunches is not compromised.

Education Secretary Zheng Xinhui said that in the 2015 school year, each elementary and middle school student will receive a subsidy of 56 yuan per meal, and a junior high school group meal subsidy of 58 yuan. Each school must still maintain at least three dishes, one soup and related food supply standards in accordance with the contract. The city government is responsible for itself through the school. Supervision by the management and the Education Bureau’s responsibility area and joint inspections across bureaus have established a "three-level quality control" mechanism to check every step from menu review, ingredient acceptance to actual meal delivery; if there is any violation of the contract, improvements will be required within a time limit, points will be recorded, and payment will be deducted as agreed.

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The Education Bureau pointed out that the self-service lunch rate of Tainan schools reached 94.5%, and the joint feeding rate of central kitchens reached 81%; an anonymous questionnaire survey in the previous school year showed that lunch satisfaction was "acceptable or above" over 98%. In response to reports from members of parliament about group meal problems in some junior high schools, schools will be required to increase the frequency of student anonymous questionnaires to collect opinions on dishes, portions and tastes, and urge the industry to improve.

Wang Xuanmao pointed out that in some junior high schools that use group meals for meals, students only rated the dishes, portions and tastes as "average". He was worried that group catering operators would face rising costs of ingredients, labor, etc., which might affect the quality of the meals, especially as the amount of raw food in junior high schools increased, and the dishes, portions and tastes should all be taken into consideration.

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