International School Meals Day

It’s International School Meals Day on 9 March, so we’re taking a look at our food portfolio, to learn more about the produce that makes up our children’s healthy school lunches.

And the good news is that since we started tracking back in 2017 – the amount of Scottish produce councils source through our food frameworks, has increased year-on-year. 

In 2020, 75% of spend on our fresh meats, cooked meats and fresh fish framework was on Scottish produce, and 98% of milk spend is on Scottish milk.

Here are some more interesting facts: From October 2021 until September 2022 around 1.4 million eggs and 184,000 tins of tomatoes were purchased by Scottish councils, through our frameworks.

And each year, Scottish councils source over nine million cheese and tomato pizzinnis, and over three million Muller Healthy Balanced Yoghurts, through Scotland Excel’s frameworks.

Laura Muir is the Category Manager for our food portfolio. She said: “International School Meals Day is a great opportunity to stop and take stock of the important role our food portfolio plays in helping Scotland’s councils source the wide range of produce needed, to serve up nutritious school lunches.

“It’s great news that over the years, we’ve been able to bring more Scottish produce onto our frameworks to help councils ‘source local’. School meals are an important part of the school day for our children, and we look forward to continuing to support Scotland’s local authorities as they work hard to serve up tasty and nutritious school lunches.”