{"id":304443,"date":"2026-02-18T15:29:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T15:29:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/304443\/"},"modified":"2026-02-18T15:29:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T15:29:08","slug":"third-of-hot-school-meals-do-not-meet-basic-nutritional-standards-minister","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/304443\/","title":{"rendered":"Third of hot school meals do not meet basic nutritional standards \u2013 minister"},"content":{"rendered":"

At least a third of hot school meals on offer do not meet basic nutritional standards, Social Protection Minister Dara Calleary has said.<\/p>\n

TDs, parents and others have raised concerns about the nutritional value of hot school meals, with Irish celebrity chef Darina Allen comparing them to \u201cairline food\u201d.<\/p>\n

A dietitian was appointed in September who assessed 400 school meals on offer for free at primary schools across Ireland.<\/p>\n

They assessed the meals for five basic nutritional values, out of a total of 16 different nutritional elements issued to providers as guidance.<\/p>\n

Calleary said on Wednesday a third of the meals offered did not meet at least three of the five basic nutritional standards.<\/p>\n

\"AThe minister highlighted school meal standards (Ben Birchall\/PA)<\/p>\n

\u201cIn our dietitian\u2019s initial work, she has found general compliance (with) nutritional standards,\u201d Calleary said on RT\u00c9 Radio.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are issues. There are issues pertaining to the availability of fruit and vegetables.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said the next phase of the dietitian\u2019s work will be to do random inspections in schools, and said 400 schools were inspected last year.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are 16 standards, she\u2019s just looked at five initially. That\u2019s why she wants to do more work.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s why she wants to get into schools, because the predominance of her work to date has been desktop, looking at menus, so she\u2019s going going to get out into schools.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I would say that the overall theme, the overall report, is in the right direction.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said that last April, he issued an instruction to remove high fat, high salt \u2018treat\u2019 foods from being offered, and 80 per cent of food suppliers had adhered to it.<\/p>\n

Calleary said he wanted to reduce the number of ultra-processed foods in the hot school meal programme and said he would be \u201cweeding out that remaining 20 per cent\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"AA dietitian has been appointed to look at the quality of food on offer (Ben Birchall\/PA)<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were initially designed as once a week option, the high salt, the high sugar foods \u2013 they became five days a week, so we\u2019ve taken them off completely. I moved very quickly in that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He said there are cold options available in some schools but hot meals are \u201cbetter\u201d nutritionally, and said another issue being examined by the dietitian was portion sizes, which could help to address food waste.<\/p>\n

The scheme began in 2019 as a pilot scheme to provide meals in an effort to ensure children get one hot meal a day, at a cost of \u20ac54.3 million.<\/p>\n

The hot school meals programme is expected to cost \u20ac280 million in 2026, a cost of \u20ac3.20 per meal, and involves 300 suppliers, 3,200 schools, and 550,000 eligible students.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve taken universal approach to this because you don\u2019t know what\u2019s happening in any home, and for children in particular, it\u2019s important that they\u2019re not differentiated. I think the universal approach is a far more positive and fair approach.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At least a third of hot school meals on offer do not meet basic nutritional standards, Social Protection…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":304444,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[103,61,60,446],"class_list":["post-304443","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nutrition","tag-health","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-nutrition"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=304443"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304443\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/304444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=304443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=304443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=304443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}