School canteens: a review of a start to the 2020/21 school year fraught with specific health issues

The responsibility of contract caterers is to ensure the preparation and service of meals even in the situation we are experiencing today. Indeed, for the most underprivileged, the canteen meal is sometimes their only hot and balanced meal of the day. In order to fulfill this social mission, caterers must ensure strict compliance, in all of their restaurants, with the recommendations of the health authorities put in place to stem the spread of the virus which continues to circulate.

In order to ensure safety and hygiene in its canteens, Elior has therefore implemented the following operational solutions:

• An increase in the number of services in school canteens.
• The installation of floor markings to ensure social distancing.
• The adaptation of self-service: meal trays prepared before the arrival of the children and / or hot dishes served at table according to a predefined table occupancy plan, food no longer served from a communal bowl but by individual portions, and dirty cutlery and used napkins collected and returned by one person, etc.
• Cleaning plans for school canteens have been reinforced and increased both in the dining area and in the kitchen.

At the same time, Elior believes that this situation should strengthen our commitment to ensuring a healthy and balanced diet for our children. With regard to Nutri-Score, which was already widespread in shops, Elior is the first caterer to have adapted the food labelling system in contract catering, then to experiment with it in companies and now to make it accessible to students and parents in order to help guide them in choosing a healthy and balanced diet. The roll-out of Nutri-Score in Elior school canteens will start in colleges at the beginning of the 2020/2021 school year. In concrete terms, students and their parents will benefit from simple, readable and understandable information to help them choose daily menus that meet the nutritional needs of growing children or adolescents: a diet rich in iron, calcium, Omega 3, etc.