"Can't Trust School Meals... Middle School Parents in Chaos, Quitting Jobs to Pack Kids' Lunches"

Middle School Parents Worry About Food Safety, Pack Lunches
Authorities Halt Instant Food in School Meals Amid Controversy

Chinese authorities have stepped in to halt the outsourcing of school meals to instant food providers, citing concerns over food safety. This move comes as the controversy grew after parents worried about food safety began packing lunchboxes for their children, a trend that spread on social networking services (SNS).

Students eating lunchboxes brought by parents after the outsourcing of school meals.
[Photo by Sseuchuan Gwanchar]

According to the state-run news agency Xinhua on the 23rd, a Ministry of Education official stated, "Outsourcing school meals to external companies that provide pre-cooked and processed foods must be approached with extreme caution," adding, "It is not appropriate to widely expand this practice to frontline schools."

The official continued, "There is still no unified standard, certification, or traceability system for processed foods, nor a systematic supervision mechanism in place," explaining, "The Party and government prioritize school food safety and are concerned about the healthy growth of students. The majority of parents also want their children to eat safe, eco-friendly foods and nutritious meals at school."

In February, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China announced measures to promote and develop processed foods as part of rural revitalization policies. Accordingly, schools that reopened this month outsourced their school meals to companies supplying instant foods.

However, concerns over the quality and safety of foods supplied by these outsourced companies have increased, leading more parents to bring homemade lunchboxes to their children at lunchtime. Some parents have even quit their jobs to prepare these meals.

On Chinese SNS, images spread showing students eating lunchboxes brought by their parents outside the classroom during lunch, and when schools prohibited bringing lunchboxes inside, students were seen sitting outside the school gate eating the meals their parents packed.

Among these cases, parents at a foreign school in Shenzhen recently conducted a surprise inspection of the outsourced meal provider and found the kitchen hygiene to be unsanitary. As a result, about 3,000 parents at this school have been providing lunchboxes for their children.

Meanwhile, nutrition experts and state media have pointed out, "Instant foods can affect the health of growing adolescents," and emphasized, "In the absence of a supervisory management system and established standards for supplied foods, it is necessary to refrain from hastily converting school meals to outsourced services."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.