THREE of Edinburgh's top chefs today backed calls for healthier school dinners following the outcry from parents over the council's catering cutbacks.
Chef of the year Tony Singh, Michelin-starred Tom Kitchin, and Roy Brett from Scotland's official best hotel restaurant, The Grill at Dakota, spoke out after the poor standard of food being served at city schools and nurseries was highlighted in the
Evening News.
Parents are set to protest at the City Chambers this Thursday at the last meeting of the council before the summer recess.
The anger began to spread at the end of May, when hot meals were scrapped in 14 out of 18 nurseries, and on Fridays at all primary and secondary schools. The council has also temporarily closed six primary school kitchens.
Instead of food such as roast turkey or breaded haddock, young children are now being fed packed lunches containing processed cheese, fish paste, flavoured milk, jelly and cakes.
Education leader Marilyne MacLaren has admitted she was "very disappointed" with the quality of the meals, and today vowed to spend the summer holidays – which start next week – looking at ways to improve both the offering and the uptake of school dinners.
Mr Brett, chef partner at The Grill at Dakota near the Forth Road Bridge, a winner at this year's Scottish Restaurant Awards, said: "It's a huge disappointment that these changes have been introduced, especially given that diet, obesity and active lifestyles are so high on the agenda.
"I have been involved in a number of healthy eating programmes with schools and it's a real shame that some of them don't even have kitchens."
Mr Kitchin, chef proprietor at The Kitchin in Leith and last year's Scottish Chef of the Year, added: "A mix of fresh and seasonal ingredients should be used to provide healthy and wholesome meals for children.
"The quality of school dinners is an increasingly important issue for me, and I can fully appreciate these parents' concerns."
Mr Singh, owner of Edinburgh's Oloroso and Roti restaurants, was last month named chef of the year at the Catering in Scotland Excellence Awards.
He said today that creating something "healthy and hearty" does not have to be difficult or expensive. "If schools really must stop serving hot food, they should at least be providing packed lunches fuelled with fresh, natural ingredients."
The cutbacks were drawn up after Edinburgh Catering Services projected a £500,000 budget deficit because the number of pupil eating school meals fell from 1.95 million to 1.83m last year.
At a meeting earlier this month, the Lib Dem/SNP administration passed an emergency motion, expressing "concern" at the situation, but did not commit to reintroducing hot meals.
Labour education spokesman Andrew Burns has lodged another motion for this Thursday's meeting, which calls on councillors to agree that the cutbacks were a "serious mistake".
Cllr MacLaren today said she agreed with the "aims and objectives" of the three chefs.
But she added: "This comes down to take-up – the more children who eat school meals, the more revenue we will have to spend."
The full article contains 525 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
