School food supply in North Rhine-Westphalia - Analysis of the current situation

Summary

This paper presents first findings about school meal provision in the region of North Rhine-Westphalia. This is the German federal state with the highest population and also with the highest number of pupils in Germany. Findings demonstrate that the situation and regulation for school meal provision in this region is somewhat disordered and less structured than for example in the city state of Berlin. The situation is presently changing since the school days have to be longer through the expansion of the allday-schools, regulated by the communal law. Also, the awareness of a healthy offer for lunch is increasing. Within this process, more and more money has been spent by the government in North Rhine-Westphalia to improve the situation, e.g. the “All-day Initiative” (Ganztagsoffensive). A Coordination Centre (Schulvernetzungsstelle) was created to facilitate communication with all schools. It will also build a central
point of reference for school meal provision in North Rhine-Westphalia, even though there are no centralised solutions for all schools in this federal state. Every communal school authority or the individual school itself has to find its own system for presenting a lunch offer to the pupils, e.g. with a school-owned canteen or food provided from catering firms. There are no compulsory guidelines for the use of organic food in school meal provision in North Rhine-Westphalia. The government only refers to general official guidelines of the German Nutrition Society (DGE –
Deutsche Gesellschaft fuer Ernaehrung e.V.) which only recommend that 10% organic food should be used in school meal provision. At the moment, and because of the changing situation, the schools are more focused on developing their own infrastructure for serving food or on receiving an overview of caterers’ offers. Therefore the integration of organic produce in school food usually plays a minor role.
This disordered situation could constitute an interesting point of action for organic catering. It could also be
the right point in time for several stakeholders to care about the development and to enforce the provision and the consumption of organic meals in schools. Lastly, it might possibly create a well-organised structure with a high usage of organic food.