FDBusiness.com

The European Commission Joint Research Centre and Directorate-General for Health and Food Safety have presented a report to help authorities implement healthy food standards ensuring that they procure healthy school food. The report provides technical guidance on, among others, drafting clear specifications on foods and food services to be procured to make the healthy food the default choice.

Vytenis Andriukaitis, Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, says: “Healthy food is essential for the well-being and development of children and young people and schools are an excellent place to make the healthy food choice, the easy choice. This EU research tool will help schools to do exactly that – provide kids with food that enables them to grow and develop in the best way possible.”

Policy makers, educators and researchers already benefit from a comprehensive overview of European school food policies produced by the Commission’s Science and Knowledge Service, the Joint Research Centre in 2014. Building on this overview the technical guidance in the present new report covers key food groups such as fruit and vegetables, meat, dairy products, cakes and sweets and nutrients such as salt, saturated fat, carbohydrates, sugars, and micronutrients like iron, calcium and vitamin C. It also includes specifications for food preparation and catering services in general.