School meals in Ireland 'akin to airline food' says renowned celebrity chef

Irish chef Darina Allen has said free primary school meals should be sourced locally and made from scratch.

The celebrity chef and founder of the Ballymaloe Cookery School has previously raised concerns about the nutritional value of the meals provided to all primary schools in Ireland.

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She said her concerns that the programme was “not fit for purpose” were shared by food professionals, academics and parents.

Appearing before the Education and Youth Committee, she welcomed that there was a hot school meals programme and said it could have the same public health benefits as the smoking ban.

But Ms Allen questioned the nutrition and taste value of the meals provided and said it was a “missed opportunity” to teach children about their food.

“Children need a positive relationship with food and to understand the importance of food,” she told the committee, adding that they should be taught about how it connects to their local area and the seasons.

She said the current school meal programme was “undermining children’s health” and that the meals provided were “generally lacking” in nutrition, and said ultra-processed foods “dominate many school meals”.

She said that the approach was an “industrial” one “akin to airline food” and that reheating meals reduced their nutritional value, and also said food waste from the programme was “off the scale”.

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“‘Something is better than nothing’ is far too low a bar for a national programme relied upon by so many children for daily nourishment,” she said.

Ms Allen said that cooking meals from scratch using locally sourced produce would “align” with the Government’s policies on a circular economy and support local farmers and businesses.

She gave the example of Duhallow Community Food Services in north Cork, which she said was a “scalable” model.

She also cited a model used in Japan where meals are cooked from scratch using locally sourced ingredients and every school must have an in-house nutritionist.

“I think if the teachers were to eat the meals with the children, that would bring on change very quickly,” she added.

Chief executive of the National Parents Council Aine Lynch said a survey indicated that most parents food was of good quality, and called for a national audit on sentiments towards the hot school meals programme before any changes are made.

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Committee chairman Gareth Scahill said 682,000 students received hot school meals across primary schools last year and said it was worthwhile to look to refine the programme.

He said he was part of a delegation to observe a school meal programme in Finland, where the children took as much food as they wanted and ate it from a plate rather than disposable material.