250,000 Meals/Week in Child Services: Best Practice Guidelines Issued for a Healthy Diet

Luxembourg's Ministry of Health and Ministry of Education, Children and Youth, together with the Ministry of Health, has issued Best Practice Guidelines for a healthy diet in education and care services for children.

The number of children receiving education and hospitality services has significantly increased in recent years in Luxembourg. These structures are responsible for many tasks, including the provision of a healthy diet and ensuring high food safety.

In this sense, the service of food security oat the Ministry of Health had particularly stressed the need to develop a good practice guide tailored to the specific needs of this sector.

"The guide in question constitutes a great tool to help educational and hospitality facilities to provide the greatest possible protection of children entrusted to them in terms of food safety and to meet the requirements of legal provisions" said Lydia Mutsch, Minister of Health.

Under EU law, education and care services for children that offer meals - and therefore carrying out an activity in connection with the production, handling and distribution of food - are considered food business operators.

"Since childhood sector kitchens produce 250,000 meals per week (against 50,000 in secondary education), this sector can not be considered as a negligible quantity production of meals and has primary responsibility for the safety of food, which is responsible directly to the provision of education and care services," said Thierry Lutgen, president of the Association of Day homes.

The Best Practice Guidelines attempt to address the various situations in which food is handled. It is considered as a guidance and implementation tool to establish and ensure proper food hygiene and safety and to apply HACCP principles in establishments that offer meals to children aged between 0 and 12 years.

Thus, for example, premises, equipment and utensils must be working in perfect condition, easy to clean and, if necessary, disinfect. Workers must understand the rules on personal hygiene and the hygiene of foodstuffs and their preparations and must apply them daily.

The guide is addressed to kitchen staff, teaching staff and children, i.e. anyone who comes into contact with food within the establishment, whether shopping, storing, preparing food or by way of table service.