School Meals under the microscope
To ensure the safety and quality of Hampshire School Meals, 500 samples are taken each year for comprehensive hygiene and compositional tests. In addition, suppliers are audited to ensure that their production systems are satisfactory. This groundbreaking project started 10 years ago but is reviewed annually to ensure the County Council gets safe food and good value for money from its suppliers. Hampshire’s three main food suppliers are HC3S (Hampshire County Council Catering Services), Scolerest and Pabulum. The work is funded by Education, Social Services and HC3S.
Aims and objectives
The aim of the work by Hampshire Scientific Service is to ensure that suppliers of food for schools are meeting UK regulations for compositional standards and that the food supplied is microbiologically safe. The suppliers are also requested to meet certain requirements that have been set by the Food Standards Group regarding genetically modified foods.
Organisations Involved
1. Hampshire County Council (HCC)
2.Hampshire Scientific Service (HSS)
3.HCC Trading Standards
4.Food Standards Group (The Food Standards Group consists of representatives from HSS, HCC Education, Social Services, Trading Standards, HC3S, Scolerest, and Pabulum. Environmental Health are also available to provide advice if necessary).
5.HC3S (Hampshire County Council Catering Services)
6.Scolarest
7.Pabulum
Target Audience
School food suppliers.
Methodology
A selection of schools are chosen each year to be visited by HSS and these schools are given at least 24 hours notice that a food sampling officer will be visiting to take foods away for microbiological and compositional examination. The sampling officers choose a variety of food types ranging from organic burgers to yoghurts – the decision rests on the type of analysis or examination that the laboratory can carry out and the descriptions that are associated with the products. Examples include: GM ingredient tests, fat, soya, meat content, fish content and antibiotics in milk. Hygiene tests include total viable plate counts, coliforms, E.coli, Saphylococcus aureus, Salmonella and Listeria tests. All foods are taken from unopened packages and batch codes are noted. The foods are analysed or examined within 24 hours and the results are reported back. Where unsatisfactory results are found the individual suppliers will be contacted and where necessary the factories are audited using a sub-contractor. The audits follow the identical procedure used by the County’s Trading Standards officers
Funding
The sampling, analysis and auditing costs £80,000 per annum. This is paid by:
- HCC Education
- HCC Social Services
- HC3S
- Portsmouth City Council (some meals are taken from Portsmouth City Council Schools)
Recruitment
It is necessary to have qualified food officers to take samples from the schools as well as suitably qualified auditors to carry out checks at the factories.
Other Resources
Hampshire County Council is the fortunate position of having access to its own laboratory. Other authorities that are not in this position should contact their own trading standards or environmental health services for information about Public Analysts or they may contact HSS, which offers similar services to external authorities for advice. Alternatively they can check the Association of Public Analysts website at: www.the-apa.co.uk
With regard to food factory auditing, trading standards officers are qualified as lead auditors, which is a necessary requirement as part of their food enforcement work. However, authorities wishing to request for their officers to become involved in factory inspections of food suppliers, (as in the case of West Sussex Trading Standards – see case study on this site) especially those not within the local authorities region should take on board the amount of time that these audits can take. This work needs to be carefully built into any business plans for the year and in some cases it may be necessary to sub-contract out the work – ensure that those hired in are completely independent though!
Sustainability
This is a long term project that is reviewed annually to ensure it addresses latest concerns and technological developments. Both the Council and its contractors recognise its importance. The recent Jamie Oliver campaign to improve school meals underlines the importance of this work. The scheme continues to identify foods that do not satisfy standards. In some cases the matter had been resolved but the problem has later returned. New legislation is continually coming into force, e.g. New meat Product Regulations give a new definition for meat. Parents, governors, and the general public continue to be concerned about what is in their foods – i.e. the presence of additives and GM materials and it is only by examination and analysis of the foods that these queries can be answered.
Evaluation
Using the results of analysis, the food suppliers can be advised of whether or not their products meet the standards set. Lynette was pleased that 464 of 500 samples tested in 2004/5 were correct. However this still left a 7.2% failure rate. Without this work these foods would have been fed to Hampshire’s school children. Most failures relate to compositional matters such as low meat or fish content. However, several products gave unsatisfactory microbiological results.
Lessons learnt
Hampshire’s Head of Science & Food Standards, Dr Paul Berryman, reports that the key to success is involving all interested parties at an early stage. The contract was set up after extensive discussions with Education Officers, meal suppliers, Trading Standards Officers, Food Scientists and purchasing experts. It was crucial to include compositional and hygiene standards in the original tender document to ensure that quality did not suffer at the expense of a low price. The contract has been reviewed to address GM testing, enforcing a beef ban during the BSE crisis and checking for potential allergens. Hampshire also benefits from having an integrated "farm-to-fork" food standards team including TSO’s, animal health officers, public analysts and food scientists. This enables a rapid response to any new school meal issue.
Future Developments
So far this work has mainly been contract monitoring of individual food items against set compositional and hygiene standards. However it has been recognised, especially in light of the recent publicity surrounding the nutritional standards of school meals, that analysis could also look at the nutritional content of plated meals to check that standards are being met. HSS intends to utilise a novel "School Meal" computer programme developed by its partner laboratory Kent Scientific Services. (See Kent case study on this site). It provides schools with a simple, easy to use tool to monitor the menus and assess their nutritional value against the Caroline Walker Trust standards. It illustrates graphically if the menu is too high in fat, sugar or salt or too low in essential nutrients such as protein, fibre, vitamins and minerals.
Hampshire scientists and TSO’s are also working with HC3S to promote Healthy Eating in schools and staff restaurants. See our project on Healthy Eating on this site for further details:
For further information about this project please contact Lynette on the details below:
Name: Lynette Welsh
Position: Team Leader of Environmental Safety
Address: Hampshire Scientific Services,
Hyde Park Road,
Southsea,
Hampshire
PO5 4LL.
Telephone: 023 9282 9501
Email: lynette.welsh@hants.gov.uk