Class Cuisine

Class Cuisine montage More than £500,000 has been invested in a state-of-the art kitchen facility to supply freshly cooked meals to the county's 19 primary schools.

Class Cuisine is the Council's "cook freeze" facility based at the site of the former leisure centre in Sauchie.

View a 360° virtual reality scene of the facility

The new production unit uses specialist freezing equipment to rapidly freeze cooked meals, sealing in the nutrients. Meals are then transported round schools, where specialist ovens - costing a further £200,000 - heat the meals through to the perfect temperature for the children.

Bruce Geary, Catering Manager with the Council said: "This is a very exciting facility. We are cooking meals that use the best fresh produce. It is then fast frozen and sent on to the schools to heat and serve to pupils."

Class Cuisine means that all school children in the County will enjoy the same high quality food.

"We did have a few schools that had difficulties serving the children hot food, as not all of them had full kitchens," said Bruce.

All of the primary schools have dedicated ovens to reheat the frozen meals. The meals themselves are prepared in large trays - portions of between 9 and 12 per tray - with health and nutrition still the number one factor.

As food is frozen quickly, early in the production process, flavours are locked-in and vitamin content is retained. Evidence suggests that cook-freeze systems result in better vitamin C retention than conventional systems where food is kept warm for long periods.

So what's on the Menu?

School meals have come a long way since boiled cabbage and pink custard for dessert. Children can now dine on chilli with tacos or chicken curry. Or how about fresh fruit or toffee apple crumble for afters?

All our schools follow the Scottish Government's initiative "Hungry for Success - a whole school approach to school meals in Scotland" (2002). The scheme aims to develop a wider understanding of food, nutrition and healthy lifestyles to inform children's choices and eating habits in and out of school - and throughout life.

Children's diets are particularly poor with many failing to eat vegetables and fruit, but consuming high levels of fat and salt.

Now schools learn about healthy foods in the classroom - while tasting them in the dining hall. Improving children's diet can make a major impact on their health - as well as benefiting educational attainment and health in later life. School meals now follow nutritional advice, based on bread, cereals and other starchy foods, fruits and vegetables, and low amounts of fat, sugar and salty foods.

Primary One and Two children get free fruit and the Council has just committed another £75,000 to develop a nutrition project scheme in primary schools, to keep the healthy eating message top of everyone's list.

Some facts about children and young peoples food intake: