Why is the "central kitchen" catering so unpopular with parents?

Lead

Recently, a number of parents of students in Rongjiang New District, Ganzhou, Jiangxi Province, reported that after the start of the fall semester this year, many primary and secondary schools and public kindergartens in Rongjiang New Area began to use central kitchen meals, but there were problems such as untimely delivery and unpalatable meals, and parents were not consulted before using this catering mode. For a time, public opinion about the school's central kitchen catering quickly fermented, arousing the attention of people from all walks of life.

01

The policy continues to promote, and central kitchen catering has become popular

At present, the regulations on the provision of meals in schools are not uniform throughout the country, and some areas require primary and secondary schools to have canteens. However, not every school has the conditions and ability to build its own canteen, especially many primary and junior high schools in urban areas, due to land shortage and other reasons, cannot open kitchens and canteens. Moreover, local market supervision departments have high requirements for school canteen hardware and hygiene, and it takes a lot of investment to achieve the corresponding indicators, and it is not simple to build and operate a canteen.

Under the consideration of comprehensive factors such as cost, sanitation, and supervision, self-built canteens are gradually "falling out of favor" and becoming abandoned by many schools. On the other hand, driven by national policies, solving the problem of students' meals (especially lunch) through "central kitchen" catering is becoming a new choice for more and more schools.

In 2020, the Ministry of Education issued the Action Plan for the Education System to "Stop Catering Waste and Cultivate the Habit of Conservation", which mentioned that it is necessary to improve the whole chain of saving management from food raw material procurement, warehouse storage, logistics and distribution, production and processing to finished product sales, realize effective and dynamic adjustment of the proportion of ingredients, and encourage schools with conditions to explore the establishment of central kitchens and central warehouses to implement intensive, professional and efficient management.

In 2020, the Education Bureau of Jinan City, Shandong Province issued the Notice on Strengthening the Standardized Management of "Canteen + Catering" in Primary and Secondary Schools in Jinan, proposing to implement various forms of catering services in addition to the school canteen feeding service as the main guarantee of meal service, including the construction of a "central kitchen" multi-point distribution. As of March 2023, a total of 549 primary and secondary schools and kindergartens have been distributed in 15 districts and counties in Jinan, covering 318,180 diners

Last year, Fu'an City, Fujian Province issued the "Fu'an 2022 Education Expansion and Quality Improvement Special Action Implementation Plan", which took the direct supply of students' after-school service meals to the central kitchen as a key content, and invested 18.6 million yuan in the construction of the central kitchen; At the beginning of the new semester this year, teachers in a number of schools issued notices in class groups, announcing that the school cafeteria would no longer serve meals, and meals would be delivered by third-party companies, and parents could decide whether to let their children eat at school at noon.

At present, this kind of central kitchen-style meal distributed by catering companies to primary and secondary schools and kindergartens is generally divided into two categories. One is to match the school with clean dishes, which is for smaller schools, the kitchen space is limited, and the school can stir-fry the clean dishes after they come; The other is full-chain distribution, that is, fresh ingredients are processed, burned, stir-fried, stewed, boiled, steamed and loaded into lunch boxes, and then incubators are used to track and locate the whole process of transportation and distribution to schools.

02

Under the wind of "pre-made dishes", parents talk about the color change of the central kitchen

But recently, concerns and quarrels over central kitchen catering are continuing to ferment or even intensify in many places, and parents are worried that school meals contain prepared dishes, which will be detrimental to students' health when consumed for a long time. Some parents even resign and personally deliver meals to their children every day. Another parent said, "In fact, the main concern is that it is not visible, and the school canteen is at least supervised by school leaders and teachers, and parents also have the opportunity to see." But the central kitchen is generally far away, and parents can't see anything or can't see it in real time, which is really not secure. ”

In fact, parents' concern about the quality of prepared dishes is not unfounded, and problems such as inconsistent product information labeling, vague classification of some additives, and high sodium content cannot be ignored. The huge controversy caused by the central kitchen catering in Rongjiang New Area in Ganzhou, Jiangxi Province, is largely also a "verbal criticism" of pre-made dishes.

According to the People's Daily Public Opinion Data Center, the current negative news about prefabricated dishes entering the campus mainly reflects the following opinions: First, it is believed that the essence of prefabricated dishes is overnight dishes, not only nutrient loss, but also more additives, long-term consumption is not conducive to children's health; The second is to question whether the prefabricated vegetable enterprises entering the campus are compliant; The third is to cancel the introduction of pre-made dishes into the school and give children the fresh and nutritious meals they deserve; Fourth, it is believed that pre-made dishes into the school should not be "one-size-fits-all", but parents and students have the right to know and choose, schools should provide a variety of feeding methods, and students should independently choose whether to eat the pre-made dishes provided by the school.

It is undeniable that with the characteristics of saving time and effort, low cost, etc., pre-made dishes are rapidly occupying the catering market and collecting a large number of consumers in recent years. Previously, the National Development and Reform Commission issued the "Measures on Restoring and Expanding Consumption", which proposed to tap the potential of the prepared vegetable market and accelerate the construction of the prepared vegetable base. Nationwide, the prepared vegetable market is expanding rapidly, and relevant data shows that the scale of the mainland prepared vegetable market is expected to exceed 500 billion yuan in 2023, and there are more than 60,000 related enterprises.

At the same time, some industry experts are concerned about this, believing that the pre-processing of prepared dishes will lead to the loss of nutrients, which may affect children's health. "Pre-made dishes" should not be the best choice for school meals, and do not comply with the principle of the most beneficial to minors in the protection of minors stipulated in Article 4 of the Law on the Protection of Minors.

Qin Hui, a lawyer at Beijing DHH (Shanghai) Law Firm, believes that prepared dishes should not be sold to primary and secondary school students at this stage. He believes that minors are persons with limited or incapacitated persons, so whether to use prepared dishes and whether to sign a sales contract with a school or a prepared vegetable enterprise needs to respect the opinions of the minor's guardian.

In response to parents' concerns, education departments and relevant units in many places have also responded recently. On September 7, Guangzhou Duomanfen Food Co., Ltd. issued a statement saying that the student meals provided by the company were all freshly prepared on the spot in the central kitchen on the morning of the meal, and there was no prefabrication; On September 14, the Huzhou Municipal Education Bureau replied to the "problem of pre-made dishes entering the campus", saying that Huzhou City requires school canteens to purchase fresh ingredients, and no pre-made dishes have entered the campus at present; The Xingyang Municipal Education Bureau responded that fresh dishes were prepared by the central kitchen for lunch and delivered to the school by special personnel and cars according to the requirements of meal preparation, and no pre-made dishes were used.

However, responses such as the above do not seem to be enough to dispel parents' concerns, and the discussion of central kitchen catering and the controversy over the introduction of prepared dishes into schools are still being debated and voiced from all walks of life.

03

Be open and transparent and see how well the catering work is done

The campus canteen is mainly facing minors, which is in a critical period of physical and intellectual development, and the requirements for food safety and nutrition should be higher and stricter. In the matter of central kitchen catering, the relevant management departments should formulate stricter entry thresholds, and for enterprises and products that intend to enter the campus, they should also do a detailed test and explanation of their nutritional content and shelf life.

For enterprises, catering enterprises need to introduce mature systems and achieve standardized management. Enterprises need to establish and improve food safety processes and management procedures, practitioners should clarify food safety responsibilities and operating procedures, and at the same time establish systems such as acceptance, storage, distribution, and sample retention of nutritious meals, as well as emergency response plans for emergencies, and regularly conduct self-inspections of food safety work.

For schools, it is necessary to strictly observe campus food safety. Chen Yinjiang, deputy secretary-general of the Consumer Rights Protection Law Research Association of the China Law Society, believes that the relevant regulatory departments should implement supervision in a down-to-earth manner, not only to increase the intensity of daily supervision and inspection, but also to carry out targeted special supervision and inspection for problems that consumers have concentrated and prominent, and crack down on violations of laws and regulations or acts that harm consumer rights and interests in accordance with the law.

More importantly, schools should ensure maximum openness and transparency in the central kitchen food distribution. The "Regulations on the Management of School Food Safety and Nutrition and Health" jointly issued by the Ministry of Education and other departments clearly requires that schools shall listen to the opinions of parents' committees or student representative assemblies on major matters involving centralized meals in schools, such as food procurement, canteen management, and selection of feeding units, and ensure the right to know, participate, choose, and supervise. Part of the reason for the controversy was also due to the fact that parents were not widely listened to before adopting the central kitchen catering model.

In addition, strengthening the self-construction of canteens can also solve the controversy caused by the central kitchen from the root. According to public media reports, as of March this year, schools in Wuchang District, Wuhan City, Hubei Province, have basically achieved 100% self-built canteens to meet students' meal needs. At the same time, it has also completed the construction of "Internet + bright kitchen bright stove" for most primary and secondary schools and kindergartens in the district. A teacher at a primary school in the district said that it is far safer to achieve "bright kitchens and bright stoves" in the school than to buy unified meals outside.

In the future, with the further upgrading of catering quality consumption, the pain points and rigid needs of educational institutions such as primary and secondary schools and kindergartens in catering will continue. Relevant units and departments should work together to establish a transparent and traceable food system from seed breeding, material selection, processing, inspection to the table.

epilogue

Campus food safety is related to students' health and life safety, and more importantly, social harmony and stability, and is the focus of attention of all sectors of society. Therefore, in the process of student catering, schools, enterprises, governments and other departments should do a good job of linkage and caution.