Municipal production enterprise for catering will hire subcontractors to organise school meals in Mykolaiv

School meals in Mykolaiv will be partially outsourced to subcontractors. Photo: archive NikVesti

Mykolaiv is preparing to upgrade its school catering system: the city is purchasing heating cabinets, and the utility company will engage subcontractors for catering in schools without kitchens.

This was reported by Mayor Oleksandr Sienkevych, commenting on the results of catering inspections, to NikVesti.

The mayor explained that the current system cannot cope with the load: schools were designed to feed about 20% of the number of children who need to be fed now. Due to the lack of cooks and technical capabilities, some students received cold meals.

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«We have now involved parents in food inspections so that they can control the quality themselves. The main problem is that the city, like other cities in Ukraine, was not ready for such a large number of children to be fed. We used to provide food for about 20% of this figure. Therefore, neither the number of cooks nor the ability to seat all the children in the dining room allows us to provide hot meals to everyone. Because of this, there were often complaints that the food was cold — because it was getting colder by the time it was brought in and distributed,» he said.

In schools that do not have their own kitchens, the city refuses to deliver meals from other educational institutions. Instead, they plan to conclude contracts for catering — full cooking on a subcontract basis. According to him, the model of the catering organisation will be partly similar to the principles of the municipal enterprise «Parks»: some services will be performed independently, and some will be outsourced to contractors.

«We are currently purchasing heating cabinets to serve hot food. We also plan to switch to a subcontracting format: in schools without canteens, we will not bring food from other schools, but rather order catering and sign contracts for cooking. Let me explain using the example of KP «Parks». When they were planning their work around the city, they calculated that they only had enough people to cover Zavodskyi district. For other districts, they held tenders and engaged contractors. Therefore, the MPE-C remains the main organisation, and it will outsource some of the work that it does not have time or cannot do well. We need one organisation through which we can control the quality of food. As an organisation, the MPE-C will outsource some of the work that it cannot do or does not do well. We will also see how it works and make further decisions. The amount of money allocated for food is not enough to provide both quality food and disposable tableware at the same time,» the mayor said.

Complaints about food in Mykolaiv schools

Earlier, parents of Mykolaiv schoolchildren posted complaints about free meals on social media, talking about cold dishes, undersized portions and dirty dishes.

Petro Vasheniak, the director of the municipal enterprise responsible for catering, stated that he had personally checked the situation and that the portions met the standards, while some of the dishes were simply not visible in the photos published. After that, the situation was checked by both the utility company and the State Service of Ukraine for Food Safety and Consumer Protection, which reported that it had not received any official complaints.

This year, all students from grades 1 to 11 receive free lunches — the costs are covered by the state and the city budget.

After parents' complaints, the Office of the Ukrainian Parliamentary Commissioner for Human Rights sent a request to the Department of Education. In response, the city authorities set up a commission with representatives of the city council, the State Service of Ukraine for Food Safety and Consumer Protection, deputies and parents. Between 16 and 24 September, they inspected 13 schools and found violations: lack of hot running water, dishes with damaged enamel, lack of refrigerators and problems with food storage, as well as shortcomings in the organisation of the process and documentation.

The Ombudsman's office stated that it would monitor how the city addresses the shortcomings. Earlier, the authorities also reported that they were considering installing cameras in school canteens.