School canteens in Spain must provide fresh fruit and vegetables every day

Alfonso Torices

Madrid

Thursday, 17 April 2025, 15:11

The Spanish government has approved a newe decree that will revolutionise school dinners in Spain. It contains a raft of measures, mandatory in all primary and secondary schools in the country, which aim to ensure that all pupils using this service are guaranteed at least five nutritious, varied and healthy meals every week throughout the school year.

It is committed to fresh, seasonal products and bans precooked foods, fried foods, industrial pastries and sugary and energy drinks in an effort to tackle childhood obesity. Spain is one of the highest-ranking countries in Europe for overweight children, a problem that particularly affects the poorest pupils.

The requirements of the decree must be met in all state, private and state-subsidised infant, primary, secondary, baccalaureate and basic and intermediate vocational training centres. All canteens must guarantee daily fresh fruit and vegetables on the menu and, in addition, at least 45 per cent of these products must be seasonal, which will promote local food.

The regulation establishes that children and teenagers will eat between one and three portions of fish per week, There are currently are up to 1,200 school canteens in Spain that never serve fish. The new decree also promotes the use of pulses in school meals, due to their high nutritional value.

At present, according to data provided by the regions, up to 14 per cent of schools do not comply with the recommendation to serve pulses at least once a week. For unrefined cereals, the decree stipulates that at least one serving of wholemeal rice or pasta should be offered each week, as well as several servings of wholemeal bread.

A second important guideline is that precooked and fried food will be virtually eliminated from the menu. Pre-cooked food, such as pizza, pasties or fried food, may only be served once a month at the most. Fried food prepared on the day (not from convenience food) may be used a maximum of once a week, but should preferably be cooked in olive oil or high oleic sunflower oil.

The new regulations will almost entirely remove sugary drinks from schools, which may not be served in the canteen or sold in any part of the educational facilities. Furthermore, energy drinks and industrial pastries will be eliminated from all vending machines and cafeterias. Products that exceed a maximum content of five grams of sugar per packaged portion and those that do not comply with the criteria recommended by organisations such as the World Health Organization (WHO) on the limits for the intake of fats, sugars and salt will not be sold.

According to a report, almost 70% of the vending machines in schools do not comply with the nutritional criteria recommended by the WHO. In the cafeterias in these centres, non-compliance is even greater, affecting 74% of the existing ones.

All of these compulsory guidelines are intended to combat obesity that affects 36% of Spanish children, which places the country in sixth place in Europe. Twenty per cent of pupils between the ages of six and nine are overweight and 16 per cent are obese, which is the seventh worst rate in the European Union. 47 per cent of obese children come from disadvantaged families.