Meatless happy? In Freiburg, southern Baden, school and kindergarten children will only be able to get a standard vegetarian menu from next year. Because the plant-based meals are said to cost more, many parents have protested in advance.
In Freiburg, children in municipal daycare centers and elementary schools should only be given vegetarian food from the next school year. The Freiburg municipal council wanted to discuss a corresponding regulation. In addition, the prices for school meals are to be gradually increased from the 2023/24 school year. The proposal was met with fierce criticism, including from parents’ councils.
More than 500,000 lunches are served in the canteens of Freiburg schools every year. With the reduction to just one menu line, the administrative effort should decrease, as stated in a template for the meeting. So far there have been two types of food, with meat and fish also being served.
“Since the intersection of different eating habits is a vegetarian offer, the menu line should be vegetarian in the future,” it says now. In the longer term, it is possible to apply the regulation to secondary schools. The proportion of organic products in school and daycare catering is to rise to 30 percent – so far it has been 20 percent.
There was already opposition in the city parliament. City councilor Franco Orlando from the parliamentary group of the FDP and BFF (Bürger für Freiburg), for example, explained that the city leadership under the independent mayor Martin Horn was “meat consumption a thorn in the side”. It was also said that it was not certain that the proposal would be accepted directly as planned. The Greens are the largest faction in the Freiburg municipal council, followed by the SPD and the left-wing alternatives “One City for All”.
The Baden-Württemberg State Parents’ Advisory Council also raised clear objections. Parents would already have to pay for the transport of the children to school, said the chairman Michael Mittelstaedt. There shouldn’t be any new costs for parents. “With what justification should vegetarian food cost more than meat-based food? Organic seal? Laughable,” said Mittelstaedt. It is a task for society as a whole to change eating habits. “So subsidies would be more than appropriate here.”
The Vice-Chairman of the Freiburg Parents’ Council, Sebastian Kölsch, criticized that the parents’ contribution for a school lunch, currently €3.90, should rise to €4.80 by September the year after next. “According to our research, Freiburg is already at the top with its prices among large cities in the south-west,” he said.
Kölsch also complained that there should no longer be any options for children in the future. “Choosing between vegetable lasagna and steamed dumplings is also a choice,” he said. The entire parents’ council could imagine deleting the meat – that could also be done with two menu lines. An optional meat side dish for the vegetarian dish is also conceivable, for example once a week.
It is to be feared that fewer children will take part in school meals in the future, said Kölsch. It is also very important how the schools eat. “First graders have to eat in adult chairs – those are the real problems.”
In Karlsruhe, another major city in Baden, there are no comparable plans. The offer of a second menu is important in order to respond to the personal preferences of those eating and thus increase acceptance,” said a spokeswoman for the city on request.
In the canteens of the Freiburg city administration, things are already “meat-sensitive” and regional, as the city reported in a brochure on the ambitious sustainability policy of the southern Baden municipality.