Richmond schools reassured on horse meat (From Richmond and Twickenham Times)

Richmond schools reassured on horse meat

10:00am Friday 22nd February 2013 in News By Clare Buchanan

Parents of children at 31 of the borough’s primary schools have been reassured that meals are horse meat free.

Lunches at the 31 schools are provided by catering company ISS Education, which was awarded the schools meal contract by Richmond Council in 2011.

The remaining nine primary schools out of the borough’s 40 have their own contracts.

Secondary schools in the borough chose their own contractors.

ISS reassured people that none of their beef or other meat-based meals contained any traces of horse meat.

The council contract sees all school meals cooked on site using fresh ingredients and was awarded the Food for Life silver catering mark last year.

The award recognises that meat is from farms that satisfy UK welfare standards, meals contain no undesirable food additives or hydrogenated fats and no fish is served from the Marine Conservation Society fish-to-avoid list.

Councillor Paul Hodgins, cabinet member for schools, said when the council secured the school meals contract it was a priority that children ate high-quality food at lunch time.

He said: “To ensure this, we scored the tenders of the possible providers 55 per cent on price and 45 per cent on the basis of quality.

“This consideration of both price and quality has now been shown to be vitally important, when local authorities’ catering procurement has been brought into question nationally.

“I hope that more families will choose to take up school lunches.”

For more information, visit richmond.gov.uk.