2024-04-12 06:01:11
At the beginning of April, VMVT carried out a scheduled inspection in the canteen of the “Obelėlė” nursery-kindergarten, during which violations were detected. Specialists emphasize that similar cases occur quite often.
VMVT presented statistics for the “Sustainable Lietuva” initiative, which indicate that the activities of the food handling departments of pre-school institutions in 2023. performed by 1181 subjects, of which 39% were checked.
“53 percent violations were found in the inspected institutions. The largest part consisted of general hygiene (54%), self-control (22%) (laboratory tests of dishes and water are not performed on time, corrective actions are not recorded), technology (14%) (recipes and technological descriptions are not followed), products (6%) ) (expired use-by date, without traceability information) and personnel (5%) (failing to check health in time, wearing inappropriate, untidy work clothes) violations,” the specialists inform.
According to them, 33 institutions were fined according to the Code of Administrative Misdemeanors due to the identified violations, 2 were instructed to temporarily suspend their food handling activities, and 9 were issued decisions on banning the supply of food products to the market.
Nutrition must be organized in accordance with current legislation
Aiva Dabašinskienė, Deputy Director of the Public Health Office for General Affairs, which prepares menus for pre-school education institutions in Klaipėda city, points out to the “Tvari Lietuva” initiative that the public health specialist working in the educational institution undertakes to compile a daily menu according to the number of students that day.
“The Public Health Office, in order to make the working time of a public health specialist in an educational institution more efficient, has created a program for preparing a daily menu – a requirement, with the help of which the weights of food products needed to prepare meals are calculated. All products are counted to the nearest gram,” comments A. Dabašinskienė and adds that the nutrition of preschool children must be organized in accordance with valid legislation, hygiene norms and other documents that include the daily nutrient requirements for children.
“For a long time, under such conditions as in the case of Obelėlė, the child’s daily ration is not ensured due to reduced portions, and contamination can lead to the possibility of food-borne infections,” says the interviewer.
According to her, it is disappointing that there are cases when, during the cooking process, the kitchen staff use less raw materials to prepare the dish than specified in the detailed information.
Sees a systemic problem
Lina Skrupskelienė, a former member of the Klaipėda council and a public figure, says that based on the incident of the nursery-kindergarten “Obelėlė” it is worth talking about the fundamental and long-standing problem of educational institutions – food waste. True, the interlocutor is convinced that this is not a question of the kindergartens themselves, but of the entire system.
“After interviewing kindergarten staff about the amount of food and their waste generation, everyone unequivocally claims that large amounts of food waste are generated during the day. I think there are several reasons for this. First of all, Klaipėda kindergartens do not have the practice that parents should notify in advance whether their child will attend kindergarten on a certain day. This leads to the fact that food preparation is often done without knowing the exact number of children, which leads to the production of unreasonable amounts of food. The kindergarten administration always prepares breakfast “from scratch” and only lunch is prepared according to the exact number of children participating in the education”, says L. Skrupskelienė.
Another reason, according to the publicist, is the strict menus drawn up by health specialists. The food is not tasty enough for children, so not everyone eats it. L. Skrupskelienė says that this leads to extremes, because it is difficult to make tasty food from healthy products (salt, sugar, flour, spices are very strictly limited). According to the interviewer, it is important to find the golden mean between health norms and children’s expectations.
It proposes to apply the system implemented by private educational institutions
Speaking about food waste, she emphasizes to the “Sustainable Lithuania” initiative that the recently implemented food waste sorting system for Klaipėda kindergartens seems to be invalid. “I can’t say that all kindergartens in Klaipėda do not sort food waste, but, as far as I know, there are certainly some that give eggshells and meat products for processing, while all other food products go to mixed waste,” says L. Skrupskelienė.
The interlocutor is convinced that one of the possibilities for solving the problem of food organization is cooperation between parents and kindergarten administration, allowing parents to choose food menus for their children in advance through online systems, as private educational institutions do.
The ELTA news agency reminds that at the beginning of April, VMVT announced that it had carried out a planned inspection in the canteen of the “Obelėlė” nursery-kindergarten. Violations of hygiene, cross-contamination, traceability and labeling were identified during the inspection.
According to the service, inspectors also found about 34 kg of various food products stored in inappropriate places. It was also found that too small portions of food were provided to the children.
In addition, the service stated that inspectors found dirty places for storing and handling food, worn-out production equipment, outdated dirt, and contaminated refrigerators in the nursery-kindergarten premises related to children’s feeding.
Inspectors also found numerous food safety violations. According to VMVT, food prepared for consumption was stored in dirty dishes, milk – not in the refrigerator, vegetables – near animal products.
The totality of the circumstances allowed the inspectors of the service to assume that the employees may have prepared the food for take-out, for their own use.
Meanwhile, on Tuesday, the municipality of Klaipėda city announced that the director of the kindergarten-nursery, A. Vainiutė, was dismissed from her duties due to inappropriate work organization. “Educational institutions must ensure high-quality meals, and such cases, when there are serious suspicions that food is not only prepared without complying with the requirements, but also possibly embezzled, are intolerable,” Klaipėda Mayor Arvydas Vaitkus is quoted as saying in the report.
“All employees involved in this situation must be held accountable, and we say goodbye to the head of the institution who did not control the situation,” he emphasized. According to the municipality of Klaipėda, the police have been contacted due to the violations found during the inspection of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications. In addition, the municipality’s Education Department is tasked with strengthening the control of educational institutions, and the Health Protection Department is tasked with monitoring the activities of the Public Health Office.
As indicated in the report, the municipality will explain whether the Public Health Office properly monitored the organization of children’s meals in the educational institution and will perform an inspection of the internal order of the nursery-kindergarten “Obelėlė”.
2024-04-12 06:01:11