PROJECT PRINCIPLES
School meals will offer daily meals to about 2 million children. Meals are served five days a week, with the exception of holidays, holidays, and director's leave, which is almost ten months a year. Almost 400 million meals are issued annually.
The quality of everyday food, even within school meals, has a great impact on health, especially in children who grow and develop. Although food plays an important and very pleasant role in our lives, the school catering system is a cinderella in the whole colossus of education.
However, Cinderella can become the queen of the ball. All that is needed is to join forces, name weaknesses precisely and find clear and concrete solutions that would help increase and control the quality of school meals.
All children should be entitled to the same quality standard of school meals.
The project We have it on a plate (hereinafter referred to as MTNT) wants to name these quality standards and propose a system of regular evaluation of quality indicators, which would lead to the development of the entire system and gradual improvement.
The school catering system is very complex and its quality reflects a number of areas (which at first glance may not even be obvious). In each of them you can find more or less room for improvement. But one thing is clear, all areas need to be addressed, because they are all inextricably linked and interact.
So far, the problems that were just burning were always solved, and the system was not seen as a whole. We encounter the most criticism of dishes on a plate, but before they reach the plate in sufficient nutritional and sensory quality, it is preceded by a number of steps, and if they escape attention, there will never be the result we would like for children every day.
Currently, a group of carefully selected experts is developed within the MTNT for each area, who develop quality standards. So a kind of user-friendly and easy-to-understand instructions on what needs to be done to ensure quality in a given area.
These instructions will be gradually added to this website and school canteens will be able to apply these rules in their practice.
Within the MTNT project, we manage to connect two areas that have always worked separately, namely science and gastronomy. Science must define what nutritional parameters the diet should meet for children, sick and healthy people, seniors and gastronomy will provide a professional way to achieve such a result through properly chosen ingredients, culinary techniques, including the attractive appearance of the food.
An integral part of the whole project, which we must not forget is the perception of school meals by the general public and the overall climate within the system, so we allowed ourselves to choose our own terminology, which is now not fully in line with legislation.
The school canteen, which meets quality standards in all areas, is a school restaurant for us. It is not the diners, but the customers, because it is they who are the center of attention and their needs and taste preferences are taken into account, all with regard to their health. They are the ones who should look forward to food and like to go to the school restaurant. They have the right information about diet from the diet and thanks to them they build responsibility for their health, human work and nature.
The word restaurant was first used in 1765 by the Parisian chef Boulanger, who offered "bouillons restaurants" near the Louvre, ie "strengthening broths". The more general term "restaurant" was not adopted until around 1850 for places where meals are prepared and served to customers. The word "restaurant" comes from the Latin "restaurare" and means "renewal". Renewal - energy, health, good mood… Where else should such a "renewal" take place than at school?
Our project currently has 17 pilot school canteens, which are educated in culinary techniques, test the standards proposed by us in their operations and help us prepare them so that they are understandable and usable in practice without compromise. You are free to use the published standards and implement them in the practice of your school canteens. Feedback from you is also important to us.
A number of well-known culinary faces help us voluntarily with the gastronomic side - ie with recipes, and their operationally optimized preparation. Which, like us, doesn't care how children perceive gastronomy, the quality of which can greatly affect their health.
We always build standards on scientifically validated information, examples of good practice, and we strive to develop them so that they are unambiguous, specific, understandable, and applicable in all operations.
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"We paint the field and set clear rules so that all of us can play well and fairly on the field. Nothing more, nothing less. "
Our team
Although the implementation team consists of a small group of people, which further cooperates with experts from 6 working groups, who together create quality standards for various areas of school meals.
Alexandra Koštálová
She graduated from Masaryk University in the field of Human Nutrition. He currently works at the Czech Gastronomic Institute and the State Health Institute, where he is popularizing proper nutrition. She is the main researcher of the project "Healthy school canteen" and co-author of the nutritional recommendations "Nutrition on her own", which was taken over by the Ministry of Health on its health portal. She collaborated with the Ministry of Education on the Movement and Nutrition project. He lectures for the professional and lay public. She is the author of a number of publications.
Now he is fully dedicated to the project "We have it on a plate and we don't care".
Jiří Roith
In 2010, he studied "Culinary Arts and Restaurant Management" at the "International Culinary Schools of Vancouver". After his return from Canada
founded the gastronomic concept "From the farm to the table" and in 2014 he founded the educational program Culinary Arts, which aims to change the standard
Czech gastronomic education so that it approaches the standard at world gastronomic schools.
In 2020, he co-founded the Czech Gastronomic Institute, whose main goal and mission is to develop Czech gastronomy together at one table.
Eliška Selinger
She is a doctor working in the field of preventive medicine and public health. He currently works at the State Institute of Public Health. As part of her studies at the 3rd Faculty of Medicine, Charles University, she completed research internships in Italy, Germany and Norway. During her studies, she received the Award of the Minister of Education, Youth and Sports and a faculty grant for talented graduates of medicine Donatio Facultatis Medicinae Tertiae.
His research focuses on nutritional epidemiology. Currently, specifically the effects of alternative diets on health.
Renta Lukášová
She studied sociology at Masaryk University and has been working in tourism and hospitality all her professional life, her specialization is customer experience. She is on the board of Slow Food Prague, she was the ambassador of Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution.
She currently works as a program director at the Czech Gastronomic Institute.
Code of ethics
By adopting and enforcing this Code, within the We Have It on the Plate and We Don't Care (MTNT) project, we work together to improve the reputation and quality of school meals and strengthen the ability of all cooperating partners to act fairly and transparently on the basis of mutual long-term and lasting trust. .
We hereby undertake and agree that:
we maintain the highest standards of mutual behavior by using only legal and ethical means in all activities,
we actively support the highest level of moral integrity (honesty, integrity and integrity),
we actively, openly and honestly cooperate with other partners on the development of the highest possible quality of the school catering system, which affects the health of the children's generation
we are fair, impartial and we respect employers, employees, co-workers, competitors, customers, the public and all professional relationships,
we pay attention to honesty in all public statements concerning school meals, which we present at MTNT,
we comply with all relevant state and international laws and regulations concerning nutrition and gastronomy,
we pay attention to safety at work,
we distance ourselves from consciously dealing with those who use any forced labor or otherwise exploitative working conditions,
we distance ourselves from any unfair or deceptive practices and always present our intentions honestly and openly,
we are not discriminatory in any way, we respect cultural, national, age and gender diversity,
we respect the rights of others regarding their intellectual property such as patents, copyrights, trademarks and trade secrets. If an unintentional breach of ignorance occurs, we immediately resolve and correct it,
we comply with all antitrust and competition laws and all laws that prohibit unfair or unethical business practices,
we respect the competition, we do not make false statements about it and we do not comment on its activities without good faith,
we provide the professional and lay public with complete and honest information on all essential conditions of any agreement with them,
we comply with contractual obligations in good faith,
if we act on behalf of MTNT, we do so positively, constructively and professionally,
we never give bribes or other corrupt payments in any form, directly or indirectly, to anyone for the purpose of obtaining or retaining a business or favorable event, nor do we offer or distribute any illegal gift that is, or may be, contrary to the organization's rules or could be in the recipient evoke a sense of expected commitment.
within the MTNT project, we set standards in various areas, which are based on facts, data and research results, we formulate these standards completely independently and in cooperation with independent experts on the given topics.
The standards set within the MTNT project will create a fair and transparent environment for all entities operating in the school catering segment.
This Code does not explicitly set out all aspects of ethical behavior and good practice.
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How to get involved
Pilot schools are involved in the project, which will go through the introduction and testing of all quality standards over the years. But your school canteen can also be involved in such a way that you can put the standards that we will gradually publish here into practice and write to us how you are succeeding or, conversely, failing to meet them. This will help us to prepare all the materials in the best possible way so that they are understandable for everyone and work in practice. You can also participate in our seminars or workshops or actively participate in the online education system ( Culinary Arts ).
Where to look on our website?
