Cooperation between ProVeg and VDSKC: School catering with a future conquers the Internorga stage

01-Mar-2024

The nutrition organization ProVeg and the Association of German School and Daycare Caterers (VDSKC) are now working together to promote sustainable and healthy school catering. At Internorga, the partners will be talking to representatives of the industry about their impressions from practice under the motto "School catering with a future". At the next VDSKC meeting, ProVeg will enter into direct dialogue with caterers organized in the association.

Whether it's the international Planetary Health Diet of the EAT-Lancet Commission or the national recommendations of the German Nutrition Society (DGE), everyone is talking about plant-based nutrition.1 The focus is on health and sustainability as a whole. For ProVeg, enjoyment is also an integral part of this: Simply "Delicious Food for All" (LEFA) is therefore the name of the ProVeg program for school catering.

This has also made German school and daycare caterers sit up and take notice. Public expectations of caterers have risen since the coronavirus pandemic at the latest. During this time, the eating habits of many schoolchildren have deteriorated. One in six children gained weight. Since then, the German Obesity Society (DAG) and leading nutritionists have been sounding the alarm, including calls for a "Marshall Plan" for school children's nutrition.2 ProVeg and the VDSKC have therefore entered into a cooperation to overcome practical hurdles for plant-based school meals together.

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Data and networking for the nutritional turnaround

The keyword of the new cooperation is future orientation. "Around 600 million lunches are served in Germany's schools every year. This is an enormous lever for the nutritional turnaround, which can only succeed with community catering," says Anke Köllmann-Gutjahr. She heads up ProVeg's school program and is already looking forward to bringing the topic to the stage at the Internorga catering trade fair on 12 March 2024.

ProVeg is hoping to gain tangible data and additional networking opportunities from its cooperation partner: the VDSKC knows exactly what the demand for vegetarian and plant-based meals in schools and daycare centers in Germany is, for example. After all, its members prepare more than 500,000 meals every day. The association also works with politicians and administrators to develop the framework conditions for catering to children and initiates an exchange of experiences among caterers.

Plant-based expertise and communication experience for commercial kitchens

For its part, the Association of School and Daycare Caterers wants to improve its members' knowledge of sustainable catering. "Sustainability is an important aspect of our association's work. To achieve this, we need precisely the many years of experience with cooking training for tasty and healthy plant-based communal catering that ProVeg brings to the table," explains Ralf Blauert, 1st Chairman of the VDSKC Board.

These training courses are specifically geared towards cooking in commercial kitchens. They supplement the professional training of kitchen staff, in which animal-based dishes are still in the foreground, while plant-based dishes have so far been left behind. The partners also want to strengthen communication with diners and nutritional education.

Internorga: What does school catering need for the future?

The challenges for the sector are currently enormous. School catering is expected to keep children full and at the same time be tasty, healthy, increasingly sustainable and affordable for everyone. At the same time, caterers are faced with cost pressure and staff shortages. Many lack political backing. At Internorga, a school, a caterer, a networking center, the VDSKC and ProVeg will discuss what all this means in concrete terms and where those involved see room for maneuver:

March 12, 2024, 14:00-14:55, School catering with a future: impressions from the field, Hall A3, Stand 537 (Open Stage), moderated by Anke Köllmann-Gutjahr

Sources

1 German Nutrition Society (n.d.): Plant-based nutrition. Online at: https://www.dge.de/gesunde-ernaehrung/faq/pflanzenbasierte-ernaehrung/

2 Ärzteblatt (2022): Every sixth child has gained weight during the pandemic, published on: 31.05.2022. Online at: https://www.aerzteblatt.de/nachrichten/134700/Jedes-sechste-Kind-hat-waehrend-der-Pandemie-zugenommen

Note: This article has been translated using a computer system without human intervention. LUMITOS offers these automatic translations to present a wider range of current news. Since this article has been translated with automatic translation, it is possible that it contains errors in vocabulary, syntax or grammar. The original article in German can be found here.

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