Organic food in Danish schools - a contribution to healthier eating at school?

Summary

The European school food system is under transition in what has been called the European school food revolution by Morgan & Sonnino (2008). Two pillars play a major role in that transition. The call for healthier eating and the call for more organic food consumption. This research has been exploring how these two agendas interact . The research hypothesizes that there might be a synergistic interaction between the two. In other words if organic strategies and procurement schemes have the potential to be supportive for healthier eating among young people at school. The research was conducted using school food coordinators in public primary/secondary schools (children age from 6 to 15 years old) in Denmark, Germany, Finland and Italy as respondents fro a web based questionnaire . The study was first carried out in Denmark, and subsequently performed in the other three countries. The questionnaire was translated and language and culture adapted. The questionnaire included questions on attitude, policies and serving practices regarding organic food strategies and actions supportive for healthy eating . Findings suggest that schools with organic supply tend to develop organisational environments that is more supportive for healthy eating than their non organic counterparts. However the results were only significant for Denmark and Italy. In Germany results were significant in some cases where as for Finland there were no differences or results were contradictory. The findings suggest the school food revolution is driven by different agendas but that awareness raising on nutrition and sustainability issues seems to be an important feature of organic change processes.