It’s up and running in loads of schools for years now. The feedback must surely be some way positive if they are rolling it out further at big expense. I suppose there’s always a chance that like the system of housing refugees etc a lot of it is about enriching a few people.
I hope it’s a roaring success,
I don’t even know what I’m debating anymore,
No kid should be hungry in school,
I’m not all that worried about the sensitivities of neglectful parents though I’ll do everything in my power to help them improve,
It will definitely lead to massive food waste, maybe it will make great compost though, every cloud….
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What sort of food are they getting?
Do kids need anything more than a bowl of cereal in the morning and a sandwich with some fruit at lunch?
If the school supplied that for children that needed it/wanted it, would it be cheaper than rolling out these hot dinners.
I wouldn’t be against the idea of a child getting a hot meal if its their only meal but surely that can be targeted. There’s lads on here getting their dinners sent to their house once a week so they can get their portions and calories right.
Young lads gets,
Chicken curry
Meatballs
Burrito
Chicken and spuds
Burger & chips
You can change your option a week in advance
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That’s pretty decent
From talking to a good friend in a DEIS 1 junior school and their experience seems to be similar to @backinatracksuit
Before hot dinners they used to get sandwiches delivered each day and normally 80 to 90% of these would be eaten on a given day while maybe not as nutritious as the hot dinners they were eaten- with the hot dinners the quality varies on a day by day basis and approximately 50% goes in the bin.
Started in my kids school last week. Loads of choice (too much) but young lad has been happy with his every day, daughter happy with hers 5 of 7 days so far. Won’t order the 2 she didn’t like again.
Speaking to other parents seems to be going well so far…a free hot lunch…how bad
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There’s no such thing as a free lunch.
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From what I’ve heard of it from our lads-they do things like pasta, burgers, goujons, rice and chilli fairly well…twould be the stuff like roast beef and roast chicken, mash, stuff with gravy that woukd be a bit ropey. The frozen vegetables look grand. Its as you’d expect. Some of the companies do a great job.
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That sounds good, the food I’ve seen has been shocking generally though the menu looks fine.
Hopefully they won’t start taking shortcuts
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As it stands the crowd doing it are too local to willfully make a balls of it I’d say
3 euro 20c a day per child for the hot meal is what the tender says the agreed rate is
Literally a collection of the easiest food to sell as quality when it could be nearer to dog food . It’s not on the menu but something smells fishy.
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Those fit food meals are €4 a pop in the shops so should be easily done
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My daughter is in one of the rural DEIS schools that were included in the pilot phase of this so they’ve been getting them for a while now
The first company they used had great quality food and a huge choice but they stopped providing the service after a few months. The food from the second company was slop, absolutely appalling stuff and there was a lot of waste. Lots of parents just blanked out the order sheet so the stuff wouldn’t come.
The company they use now has great food, super quality and a great range.
Feedback has been really positive and anecdotally there’s far, far less waste.
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Easier do it when they don’t need to be delivered hot and ready to eat which adds labour etc but if you had the volume you’d make it work alright…small portions
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Talking to the eldest daughter this evening, 2nd year second level. She said that 5 or 6 of her base class group spend up to half their timetabled classes each day in what she called a timeout/nurture room. For the teachers among us would that be common place these days?
She was giving the impression that now more and more in the year are saying they’re not up to going to class to go to this room
I ended up feeling huge sympathy for the teachers/ principal dealing with this
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Who were the good and bad companies? Glanmore and carambola are two I heard of. Licence to print money
Glanmore was the awful one, the food was dreadful.
The good one they are using now is Fresh Today
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