Hot School Meals: What if we’ve got it all wrong?

REHEATED FOOD IN a box, eaten in a hurry at the desk, is now the reality for thousands of children around the country. 

We know that one-in-five children in Ireland are in families living below the poverty line. We know that it is of vital importance that they, and their classmates, receive nutritious meals to help them learn and grow while at school. Of course, giving every child a tasty, nutritious lunch at school naturally seemed like a good idea when Fine Gael first introduced it in 2019.

But what if we went about it in entirely the wrong way? What may have started out as a well-intentioned policy now seems to have become something far less appealing – a system criticised for poor quality, limited choice and significant waste.

A recent national survey of more than 8,000 parents, teachers and suppliers of the Hot School Meals scheme, confirms widespread dissatisfaction with what is on offer – in terms of nutritional quality, choice and the huge amount of waste generated.

The Government is proposing a rejigging of the scheme to fix the problems before it is extended into secondary schools.

Is there a better way?

With all the issues around this scheme, perhaps we should be asking: should it just be abandoned and replaced with a better model?

There are alternatives to providing reheated food in plastic or tinfoil to school children. There are radically different models that factor in food, the social experience of dining together and target not just school children but whole communities.

When a plan is not working, a viable alternative is needed. There is another option – that provides food for the body, mind, heart and soul. The model encompasses state- supported community dining with a mandate for procurement from local producers.

In 2005, in the UK at the age of 25, food entrepreneur Carly Trisk Grove opened her first restaurant with a clear vision of what she wanted that remains unchanged two decades later: “to serve good food, generously and affordably, that can bring people together and strengthen communities.”

By 2012, she had raised the capital for a purpose-built space on a local authority site, in exchange for a 50-year lease and “peppercorn rent.” With the right tech in place, the business was working, paying the team enough to live on while achieving the purpose of providing good quality, affordable food.

Advertisement

When lockdown hit in 2020, the eating out experience collapsed- instantly replaced by takeaway food delivered to your door – a trend that has remained firmly in place post-pandemic.

An Irish Just Eat report in 2023 revealed that the Irish spend an estimated €2.2 billion on food delivery every year. Comprising both industry and consumer data, the research showed that almost a quarter (23%) of consumers had used a food delivery service over the previous year, with this demographic spending on average €174.30 on grocery delivery services in a month.

The evidence shows that convenience is growing in dominance, and we eat more and more alone; at our desks, in front of our screens or on the move.

To Trisk Grove’s mind, “every takeaway is an opportunity lost: a chance to sit with others, to connect, to build community.”

The real question is, if eating out of home food has become such a central feature in today’s world, can it be reshaped to bring us together?

“What if restaurants could do more than serve food?” asks Trisk Grove. “What if they could be everyday places where connection is built into daily life?”

She started to imagine a scalable mode; one that makes low-cost, balanced, climate-conscious meals that were widely accessible, while creating spaces where eating together is a habit, not a luxury.

Trisk Grove designed a model that could be scaled up without diluting its mission: to be funded in a way that separated capital from control. To develop the infrastructure that would properly support producers, one where they would set the price, with built-in long-term relationships that simplified logistics and kept waste to a minimum.

Bits of this model already exist in the UK – the minimal choice menus of LEON; the neighbourhood warmth of LOUNGES, and the canteen flow of IKEA. OOOOBY, a company that links local producers with customers, and EVERYTABLE, which provides fresh scratch-cooked meals for every palate at affordable prices delivered to the workplace. Other structures include partnership models in public leisure centres that allow restaurants to be run in public buildings with profits reinvested locally.

Out of all these models came The Public Plate: “a system to steward, raise capital, regulate and support a UK-wide network of public restaurants; commercially viable yet socially transformative.”

Trisk Grove imagines a future where public restaurants could become the foundation of how we meet and eat outside the home- using community infrastructure to provide nutritious food and social connection where everyone is welcome.

The Public Plate is ready to pilot in Bristol, with two sites identified to test both a city centre and a campus location. There are plans to lay the groundwork for a UK- wide network. Public sector food then provides a steady market for local producers.

Related Reads

Principals resigning and returning to teaching due to hot school meals red tape, committee hears

Hot School Meals: The intentions are good, but the delivery is poor

Celebrity chef Darina Allen tells TDs hot school meals are 'not fit for purpose' (not everyone agreed though)

Unstable food sources

With war and climate shocks aggravating the certainty of food supply, public sector food is one of the biggest commercial levers available to the government that can help build economic resilience aligned with health, wellbeing and environmental benefits.

A recent UK report Bridging the Gap from Sustain, demonstrated how integrating more organic fruit and veg into school meals could drive a substantial market for UK growers, while supporting small and medium-sized suppliers to access £5 billion per year worth of public sector contracts that would keep profits in local communities and boost economic resilience.

Three school pilots are currently being undertaken in Scotland, England and Wales. The researchers argue that these regional pilots can be replicated and scaled up for the rest of the UK.

We would do well in this country to look at a model for our Hot School Meals that mirrors this, given we’ve seen further and worrying losses of our own Irish vegetable producers recently. Why not come up with a school’s food model that supports our indigenous farming and food-producing sector?

Our lives are shaped by memories around tables. In response to a society that longs for connection, our future could be eating out with no menus, where you get what is cooked on site and grown locally. Instead of dining out, we eat together with food that sustains us – in mind, body and spirit.

I have a vision of a similar model in Ireland using a social franchising model with state-subsidised affordable eateries in every town to support hot school meals and community eating that provides a continuous and robust market for locally produced whole food.

Our children deserve good food while they learn at school. It’s important that this scheme continues, but it’s not too late to rethink it in a healthier and more sustainable way. The model is already there – it just takes out-of-the-box thinking and political commitment to make it happen.

Dr Catherine Conlon is a public health doctor in Cork and former director human health and nutrition, safefood.

Readers like you are keeping these stories free for everyone...
A mix of advertising and supporting contributions helps keep paywalls away from valuable information like this article. Over 5,000 readers like you have already stepped up and support us with a monthly payment or a once-off donation.
Learn More Support The Journal