Claire-Marie Murray’s three children attend a school in Meath which does not avail of the school meals programme.
This comes as a relief to the French mother because she is “horrified at the quality” of the mass-produced food for schools here in Ireland.
She is one of a growing number of parents and concerned NGOs who are calling for big changes to the hot school meals scheme, including mandatory procurement targets for sourcing from local and organic farms.
Murray says that the French school meals scheme has massively evolved and food is no longer mass produced.
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At the end of the last school year in the city of Nantes, pupils at one public primary school dined on starters of melon, Gouda cheese, or cheese tart; main courses of vegetable ravioli, mint falafel with cheese sauce, or fish with carrots; and desserts of flavoured cottage cheese, apple compote, or seasonal fruits.
The school’s menu stated that 53 per cent of the products used in the kitchen had a quality mark; 47 per cent were organic and 23.5 per cent were local in 2024.
Murray said going to school in France in the 1990s, canteen food was “a lot more basic than it is now for school meals in France, but it was still good and there was always bread on the side”.
“All my siblings in France have kids and it’s very different now, the menus, the quality. Since the 2000s, there’s been a lot of improvement in the healthiness of the food for school kids.”
She said there must be “a happy medium between a variety of choice and all real ingredients” when the aim is for children to be focused at school.
“I understand that there has to be a shelf life, but in France the [school] food is not massively produced,” she said.
The scheme began as a pilot project in 2019 with about 30 schools. As of last March, 85 per cent of schools eligible for the scheme had made an application, at an allocation of €3.20 per hot meal.
Access to free hot meals for all Irish primary schoolchildren has been widely welcomed.
However, a report on nutritional standards within the scheme is to be submitted to the Minister for Social Protection Dara Calleary by the end of the year, following a review by a dietitian in co-ordination with the Interdepartmental Group on School Meals (which includes the Department of Health, the Department of Education, the Food Safety Authority of Ireland and the Department of Children, Disability, Equality, Integration and Youth).
In the meantime, food that is high in saturated fat, sugar and salt has been removed from lunch menus, according to a spokesperson for the Department of Social Protection.
Ruth Hegarty, food policy consultant and director of Food Policy Ireland (FPI), and food literacy expert Dr Michelle Darmody, together with NGOs and experts across health, education, environment, food and farming, are leading the development of a pilot scheme, which would use local and organic produce to supply the children’s lunches sustainably.
Hegarty said supports must be introduced to help farms to supply school catering operations, drawing from European examples like Sweden, Finland, France and Denmark, which use local and organic produce to feed schoolchildren.
“Sweden puts a strong emphasis on sustainability and Finland puts a strong emphasis on local sourcing,” she said.
“Finland definitely holds itself as a shining example, and agencies that are involved in the scheme there offer training to other countries on how to do the scheme well.
“Other countries like France have high standards for school meals but they don’t provide it for free.”
In France, the national school meals programme is part-subsidised by the government, while parents pay a portion of the cost based on household income.
Murray said: “Growing up, we had one thing called La Semaine du Gout – or the week of taste – it was a national event which is still going, where all the canteens made an effort for you to taste something different, and it was always exciting to see what they’d come up with.
“It was nothing fancy but created a bit of a buzz, like chilli con carne made with dark chocolate.”
Irish cookbook author and food writer Trish Deseine, who raised her four children in France, describes the school meals system there as “wonderful”.
However, she said: “It’s important not to judge ourselves negatively against the world’s greatest food culture, but to learn where possible.
“Irish schools on a local level would absolutely have the produce and resources to serve similar meals, and what an opportunity it would be to nourish and educate Irish kids.
“But at what cost? Will parents be able to pay? Would government/councils subsidise sufficiently?”
In the next few weeks, Hegarty will visit UK NGO Chefs in Schools, which supplies meals to some schools, with offerings like vegetable-packed plates and fresh bread straight from the oven.
Hegarty said: “In the current school meals scheme here, suppliers are boasting 15-plus choices per day, but with the same choices throughout the year.
“This is a wasteful and costly approach and eliminates any possibility of seasonality, menus tailored to product availability etc – and is necessarily based on generic sourcing of the same ingredients throughout the entire school year.
“It also provides no incentive for children to try new things, and it is entirely possible for a child to choose something like plain pasta every day, or simply eat the same meal daily.”
She said the group has written to Minister Dara Calleary and is set to meet him to discuss “how policy around school meals could bring much broader benefits”, including through efforts around procurement from local and organic farms.
Galway farmer Padraig Fahy, from Beechlawn Organic Farm, said localising the scheme and giving higher scores during the tendering process to local or organic growers would open up the scheme to more farmers.
“It’s the scoring or criteria during the tendering process that doesn’t favour local or organic growers,” he said.
A spokesman for the Department of Social Protection said it provides funding for the scheme directly to schools, and the primary relationship is between the school and supplier.
“All schools who wish to avail of funding are responsible for choosing their school meals supplier on the open market, in a fair and transparent manner in accordance with public procurement rules,” he said.
“Irish farmers currently supply to many food business operators providing school meals. Small farmers or suppliers, once registered as a food business operator, are eligible to apply to tender for school seals.
“The Schools Procurement Unit, which is grant-funded by the Department of Education, provides guidance to schools for all procurement matters pertaining to the School Meals Programme.”
[ Hot school meals: High fat, salt and sugar products to be removed from schemeOpens in new window ]
Meanwhile, Orna O’Brien, dietitian with the Irish Heart Foundation, said: “The upcoming dietitian review [of the school meals scheme] is a vital opportunity to rethink how the programme is structured, strengthen oversight, ensure suppliers meet standards and reward those providing genuinely healthy meals.
“Measures are also needed to guarantee that all schools can have equitable access to suppliers and meals of high nutritional quality.”
She said focus is needed on what really matters for children’s health, “filling the well-known gaps in fruit, vegetable, dairy and fibre intake”.
“While previous evaluations suggested hot meals may be more nutrient-dense and encourage a sociable mealtime, in practice they bring added cost, complexity, food waste and food safety challenges.”
Ms O’Brien added that if nutrition standards here could not be guaranteed, “resources may be better directed towards free cold lunch meals”.
