Organic school cafeterias in Italy

There are 683 organic school cafeterias in Italy. The number is still growing, but not as fast as it used to in the past years. From 69 organic school cafeterias in 1996, the first year Bio Bank registered them, the number went to 683 in 2007 with a growth of 6 % in that year, compared with 2006. Emilia-Romagna confirmed its leading role again with 127 organic school cafeterias, followed by the Lombardy with 121, and the Tuscany with 82.

Picture: 131 school cafeterias prepare from 301 to 600 meals daily on average

With the Bio Bank Report 2008, data was elaborated province by province for the first time, in relation to the number of inhabitants (the number of meals per 100,000 inhabitants, according to the Istat 2001 censuses). Gorizia has eight school cafeterias per 100,000 inhabitants. Udine, Pordenone, Forlì-Cesena, Trento, Siena, Modena, Bologna, La Spezia and Ascoli Piceno follow with an index of 3.5. The leading role of Gorizia, together with Udine and Pordenone, surely has its root in the first regional law for organic school cafeterias, which was passed in 2000 and promoted organic products in schools.
 
And with the cafeterias, the number of organic meals served each day in Italian schools has also increased – from 24,000 in 1996 to 924,000 in 2007 (about 70 cafeterias did not submit their number of daily meals and are therefore were not included). Considering an average of 200 school days a year, the meals served amounted to 185 million in the past year, mainly in nurseries, kindergartens, and elementary schools. The classification for daily meals per region is led by the Lombardy with 203,000 meals, about one fourth of the total, followed by Lazio with 164,000 meals (22 % of the total) and Emilia-Romagna with 112,000 meals (15 %). Florence is the province serving most meals per inhabitants, with 4,000 meals per 100,000 inhabitants, followed by Seguono Roma, Milan, Turin, Livorno, Bologna, Modena, La Spezia, Trieste and Ravenna with 3,100.

The meals are either prepared on site (68 %), or supplied by catering companies (17 %), or the school cafeterias use a combination of both. Based on data directly collected from the protagonists of the catered schools, the most important three companies per communes served are Camst in Bologna with 366, Cir in Reggio Emilia with 330 and Sodexho Italy in Milan with 309.

The same three companies lead the classification by number of meals served each year in schools of the peninsula, but the order is reversed - Sodexho Italy leads with almost 30 million meals, followed by Cir with 24 million and Camst with 22 million million. Finally, coming to the percentage of organic raw materials used in the kitchen, the leader is RR Puglia of Bari with 85%, followed by Avenance Milan and Italy Cir, both at 65%, and Camst comes third with 60%.

There is a huge gap between the sizes of various cafeterias in Italy: the capital serves more than 140,000 daily meals and Budoia (Pordenone) only serves 80 meals and is managed directly by the parents of children. 228 cafeterias prepare up to 300 meals daily on average, 131 school cafeterias from 301 to 600 meals, 144 cafeterias from 601 to 1,500 and 107 more than 1,500 meals a day.

Cafeterias and meals according Bio Bank

The number of cafeterias includes all the commune that have chosen to introduce some organic products or organic products exclusively in public schools, but also various private schools, which have chosen to go the organic way. One example is Milan, where 75,000 meals a day are served for nurseries, kindergartens, elementary schools and grammar schools, as well as two cafeterias of private schools that prepare respectively 400 and 250 meals, yet another is the cafeteria of a Waldorf school that serves 140 meals each day. (Picture: Rosa Maria Bertino)

The number of meals includes all the various possibilities: those providing a full organic menu, those with many organic ingredients, those with some organic products, and finally even those with a single organic meal. The approach and impact is always different, but often the introduction of organics gradually starts with one or more products and the range is expanded from a range of dry products, extending to fresh ones which allow complexity.

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