3 school lunches decisions that can benefit future generations
School meals can deliver benefits for health, livelihoods, and the environment. This can be accomplished by procurement decisions that diversify the ingredients, source from nearby, and engage communities and coalitions.
- farmers
- school feeding
- nutrition
3 school lunches decisions that can benefit future generations
School meals can deliver benefits for health, livelihoods, and the environment. This can be accomplished by procurement decisions that diversify the ingredients, source from nearby, and engage communities and coalitions.
School meals have the power to influence the health and development of 407 million children worldwide. They can also have a ripple effect on local farm production and the environment.
Whether this is a positive or negative effect depends on which foods are chosen to be on the plate each day. These procurement decisions can be made by a government employee, caterer, school administrator, or parent committee. But no matter who is making the decisions, it is a challenging task: in an average week, food prices and transportation logistics must be balanced with ambitious goals like national dietary guidelines. The imperative is to get the best possible meal to school each day... with the lowest price tag. Often this means compromising on meal quality, and opting for reliability.