Four primary schools in Belgrade have recently suffered from an outbreak of food poisoning from a meal provided by a catering company, with 135 children suffering from severe stomach problems and seven briefly hospitalised (Tuesday, 3rd October). This has raised the issue of schools providing their own meals to ensure that health and safety standards are not compromised by awarding tenders to the caterer offering the cheapest meals, whatever the quality.
The Strength2Food project is working with schools in Serbia to improve the quality of meals provided to children. This has been recognised in national media broadcasts. For instance Ratko Bojovic (Strength2Food partner BSN) was interviewed for the RTS daily Belgrade news bulletin Beogradska Hronika (Belgrade Chronicle), which has an official reach of 2.123 million viewers
Above you can find a YouTube video of the item in Beogradska hronika and Ratko’s interview (in Serbian). The two Belgrade schools referred to in the video are amongst the few schools in Belgrade that make their own meals, and are schools that Strength2Food is already working with on the school meals pilot scheme.
In response to the food poisoning incident, Serbia’s Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development (Strength2Food partner MPNTR) is considering school meal quality at policy level, and a working group is being established within the Ministry to consider this.
