School caterers always take a highly responsible attitude where the health of children is concerned but, like retailers and the general public, they are just as dependent upon producers maintaining strict quality control standards and taking their responsibilities to protect public health very seriously.
LACA is confident that the school catering industry has not been affected by the current situation with regard to the supply of ‘horsemeat’ beef burgers to high street retailers.
Given that the producer involved in the production and supply of the contaminated beef products has openly identified who the retail recipients are, no other catering sector or outlet has been named as being supplied with these particular affected products.
Caterers should heed the advice from official bodies such as the Food Standards Agency, DEFRA or Trading Standards on any action that might need to be taken with regard to any issues relating to contamination, risk to health or wrong labelling on food products.
To date the school catering industry has not received advice from any of these bodies in relation to this current problem.
LACA members are made up of both private and public school catering organisations as well as academies and individual schools that self-manage their school food provision. Private and public sector providers have to abide by stringent local authority procurement policies and procedures for sourcing and ensuring quality control of food products for school menus. Contracts awarded to suppliers demand full transparency and traceability over provenance of meat products.
Given the high health and safety record of the school meals service in this country and the diligence shown by all those in school catering, LACA is assured that, should there be even the slightest concern at any time over the provenance of a meat product, the school meal provider would cease using it with immediate effect.
From 2008/9, all state primary and secondary schools in England have been required to abide by Government’s Nutritional Standards for school food, with similar regulations in Scotland and Wales.
These restrict the use of processed meat products on school menus, expect caterers to apply stringent controls and call for the sourcing of the highest quality products. School meal providers use highly responsible, reputable and trusted suppliers who have served the education catering industry for many years. In order to safeguard contracts they, too, would have taken immediate action should there have been any doubt over the source or content of any meat product.
LACA has not been made aware by any school meal provider member or any school food industry supplier of any issue in relation to meat products from the ABP Food Group or its subsidiaries in question.
Parents should be assured, therefore, of the continued quality and safety of their children’s school meals.