BO­BIE-LEE DIXON

(bo­bie-lee.dixon@guardian.co.tt)

When com­ments are made like 'boxed lunch is less than nu­tri­tion­al, sap­py, bland, and un­at­trac­tive to chil­dren,' The re­sponse from the state-owned Na­tion­al Schools Di­etary Ser­vices Lim­it­ed (NS­D­SL) is a true sto­ry of a lit­tle boy hid­ing away a chick­en drum­stick wrapped in a nap­kin to take home to his younger broth­er, who can­not yet ac­cess the boxed lunch his old­er broth­er re­ceives dai­ly through the na­tion­al School Nu­tri­tion Pro­gramme (SNP).

“Taste is sub­jec­tive,” the NS­DL said when told about some of the neg­a­tive re­spons­es from a Sun­day Guardian so­cial me­dia poll, in which the ques­tion was asked, “Are you sat­is­fied with the menu on the SNP?”

For NS­D­SL, it is more than just de­liv­er­ing lunch­es; rather it's about love and pro­vid­ing safe, healthy, and nu­tri­tion­al meals to chil­dren who oth­er­wise go hun­gry.

At a re­cent tour of a Cen­tral-based school cater­er's kitchen which has been in op­er­a­tion since 1990, NS­D­SL pro­gramme man­ag­er Ali­cia Mo­hommed and zon­al man­ag­er Wahid Mo­hommed, who ac­com­pa­nied us on the vis­it, both ex­plained there was a se­quen­tial req­ui­site when it came to the SNP—rec­om­mend­ed di­etary al­lowance (RDA), safe­ty, and taste.

They said as man­dat­ed by the NS­D­SL, meals are to re­flect foods from the Caribbean six food groups and menus are planned by the tech­ni­cal staff of the NS­D­SL, in­clud­ing the nu­tri­tion and di­etet­ics pro­fes­sion­al as­signed to NS­D­SL's nu­tri­tion de­part­ment.

They fur­ther not­ed there was con­tin­u­ous di­a­logue be­tween the NS­D­SL and schools to find out what the chil­dren like and don't like and menus are re­vised each term based on feed­back, but one thing that re­mains stan­dard is the nu­tri­tion­al con­tent.

On the tour of the well-sani­tised and spa­cious fa­cil­i­ty, the Sun­day Guardian was privy to some 'be­hind the scenes ac­tion'. Staff was busy prep­ping and pack­ing box­es that had to be de­liv­ered by 11 am to the 14 schools in­clu­sive of pri­ma­ry, sec­ondary, and ear­ly child­hood care (ECC). The menu on that day was pelau, stew chick­en, and sautéed veg­eta­bles, while break­fast was a slice of sweet­bread, both of which we were able to sam­ple.

For chil­dren who are veg­e­tar­i­ans or for some de­nom­i­na­tion­al schools who re­quire strict­ly veg­e­tar­i­an lunch­es, these meals were be­ing pre­pared sep­a­rate­ly. All staff was uni­formed en­tire­ly with heads cov­ered and bare hands nev­er han­dled food, nor were uten­sils be­ing cross-used.

The man­ag­er of the kitchen was sure to in­form us, it was not a show or stag­ing, rather all cater­ers must ad­here to strict food safe­ty guide­lines. He said kitchens were mon­i­tored dai­ly by qual­i­ty as­sur­ance of­fi­cers to en­sure stan­dards are be­ing main­tained while pub­lic health in­spec­tors do ran­dom checks and NS­D­SL con­ducts rou­tine mi­cro­bi­o­log­i­cal test­ing through the Caribbean In­dus­tri­al Re­search In­sti­tute (Cariri).

Break­fast, a chal­lenge

Con­cerns were raised by some par­ents who par­tic­i­pat­ed in the poll, about the sweet­bread meal for break­fast, which they ar­gued was not a prop­er break­fast item and un­healthy for the first meal of the day. But NS­D­SL said it would love to do items such as egg, how­ev­er, there were risk fac­tors in­volved with such food items, hence it is ad­vised to stick to low-risk items.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, it was dis­closed, break­fast pos­es four chal­lenges for cater­ers—cost, time, pack­ag­ing, and va­ri­ety.

“If we look at prob­a­bly what is the best item for the chil­dren, we would go with a sand­wich every day, but again va­ri­ety is what we have to try to work with. This is why we re­sort­ed to things like crois­sant with a nice fill­ing on the in­side. We al­so have our spinach and cheese pie and we have placed in a cou­ple of sweet items be­cause the re­al­i­ty is, sweet items are favourable in quite a bit of the schools,” Mo­hommed said.

She said one has to look at ac­cep­tance and al­so the work­load, the dif­fi­cul­ty of pro­duc­ing break­fast items every day in terms of what is re­quired and putting it to­geth­er.

“A sim­ple item like the spinach and cheese pie, to pre­pare that, it takes days on end to do a batch and put it to freeze, and then in the morn­ing, you have to bake it off. So break­fast is a bit of a chal­lenge in terms of get­ting ideas as to what we can do on a dai­ly ba­sis,” she said. (See side­bar for break­fast and lunch menus).

Mo­hommed (Wahid), added, the SNP pro­gramme was not just about pro­vid­ing meals but al­so to ed­u­cate par­ents on how to bal­ance a nu­tri­tion­al low-cost meal.

“It can al­so teach them that if they get up in the morn­ing and it's a has­sle to do break­fast, a piece of sweet bread is good enough for the child, it is ac­cept­able and can hold them un­til lunchtime,” he ad­vised.

Per child, per box, cater­ers are paid $6.63 for break­fast. Pre-school lunch­es are $8.28 per box and reg­u­lar lunch­es are $9.00 per box.

Asked if these mon­e­tary com­pen­sa­tions were too lit­tle, the kitchen's man­ag­er ad­mit­ted they were, but in the same breath as­sured his fo­cus was to work at best with what is cur­rent­ly paid.

The Min­istry of Fi­nance, to which it re­ports, es­sen­tial­ly pro­vides com­pen­sa­tion for cater­ers through NS­D­SL, with the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion as the line min­istry.

'20 mil­lion safe meals pro­duced an­nu­al­ly'

As a state-owned en­ter­prise, NS­D­SL falls un­der the scruti­ny of the Pub­lic Ac­counts En­ter­pris­es Com­mit­tee (PAEC), of Par­lia­ment. It al­so part­ners with rel­e­vant stake­hold­ers such as the Min­istry of Health and the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture, Land and Fish­eries, as well as the Na­tion­al Agri­cul­tur­al Mar­ket­ing and De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (Namde­v­co), in de­liv­er­ing its ser­vices.

Cur­rent­ly, NS­D­SL sup­plies its ser­vices to 218 pre-schools, 456 pri­ma­ry schools, 138 sec­ondary schools, and 42 vo­ca­tion­al/tech­ni­cal and spe­cial schools. As of June 2018, dai­ly pro­duc­tion lev­els met 56,072 in break­fast meals and 82,811 in lunch­es. It boasts of hav­ing over 20 mil­lion safe meals pro­duced an­nu­al­ly through its 75 con­tract­ed cater­ers through­out T&T.

Its man­date as per its in­cor­po­ra­tion as a lim­it­ed li­a­bil­i­ty com­pa­ny by Cab­i­net Minute No 943 of May 16, 2002, is to: de­vel­op a strate­gic di­rec­tion for SNP and to over­see its im­ple­men­ta­tion; to de­vel­op pol­i­cy guide­lines for the man­age­ment and op­er­a­tion of the pro­gramme in re­spect to meals to be served to en­sure that the meals cater to the nu­tri­tion­al needs and di­etary dif­fer­ences of stu­dents; to es­tab­lish cri­te­ria for the se­lec­tion of cater­ers for the pro­gramme; de­vel­op qual­i­ty con­trol mech­a­nisms to en­sure the main­te­nance of high­est stan­dards and mon­i­tor­ing their en­force­ment and to plan new ini­tia­tives.

SIDE BAR:

Break­fast and lunch items

Cur­rent­ly the break­fast menu on the school nu­tri­tion pro­gramme which ro­tates over a four-week cy­cle at the kitchens of the 75 con­tract­ed cater­ers, in­clude sweet­bread; chick­en-chow and whole wheat hops; easy cheese roll or whole wheat piz­za bread; sch­neck­en; hot tu­na sal­ad with whole wheat crois­sant or bake; spinach and cheese whole wheat cres­cent; cas­sa­va pump­kin muf­fin; whole wheat cheese spread sand­wich; peanut but­ter and jel­ly whole wheat sand­wich; en­riched Chelsea bun; en­riched ba­nana bread, en­riched co­conut drop and salt­fish buljol or salt­fish and pump­kin with corn bake.

For lunch, meals con­sist of stewed pink beans with pump­kin, saf­fron rice with mixed veg­eta­bles and mac­a­roni pie; veg­e­tar­i­an hoagie with sweet pep­pers, corn, pineap­ple, and onion topped with cheese; am­char man­go with cur­ried bo­di or bha­ji and paratha roti; veg­e­tar­i­an whole-wheat piz­za; teriya­ki sauce with veg­etable chow and fried rice with car­rots; veg­e­tar­i­an cheesy chilli pas­ta with veg­eta­bles; stewed chick­en with ochro rice, pump­kin and car­rots and hot cas­sa­va sal­ad or corn on the cob; stewed chick­en with callaloo and steamed rice and black-eyed peas pelau with pump­kin, corn on the cob or plan­tain.

As part of its on­go­ing meal en­hance­ment, in­creased break­fast di­etary fi­bre is now part of the menu hence whole-wheat items. 100 per cent juices are now served on the menu, with a wa­ter ini­tia­tive for break­fast and lunch to im­prove wa­ter in­take by chil­dren. There is an in­creased in­cor­po­ra­tion of lo­cal pro­duce in menus in keep­ing with NS­D­SL's third main ob­jec­tive which is to fur­ther stim­u­late the agri­cul­tur­al sec­tor by util­is­ing lo­cal pro­duce wher­ev­er pos­si­ble in the meal plan.

Items on both the lunch and break­fast menus that are not favoured by chil­dren are sub­ject to change with the al­ter­na­tive be­ing what is called the man­ag­er's choice.