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This study presents accurate data on the school catering systems of five different municipalities which decided to invest on service quality and sustainable development. The aim is to provide a compendium to be considered by other local authorities and then used as an educational tool for drafting new templates for tender specifications. Regional laws as drivers for promoting organic consumption in school canteens and waste reduction through self service systems are two examples of interesting models for sustainable school food catering. This work does not present a unique best practice model but constellations of reference models for each different situation: in such way each municipality can consult the most fit case study and search the best solution according to specific variables.

This report investigates how food quality is perceived in school canteens and to what extent this perception, influencing public opinion about the catering service quality, reflects the real quality of served meals. The objective of this work is therefore to investigate the relationships between real and perceived quality of meals in the sustainable school catering sector. The study has been built upon a survey made over a sample of 7.500 catering service users (about 6.500 pupils and 1.000 adults) concerning the knowledge of quality/sustainability of canteen products, non-food aspects of the service (e.g.: staff management, canteen environment), the satisfaction level and possible/necessary improvements. In the present work it emerges a satisfactory knowledge level towards both taste aspects of canteen food and added-value food quality components (organic, short chain, seasonal, fair-trade, food miles). Nevertheless there is a significant lack of information exchange causing a unfruitful gap between service management and service users; as users are not enough aware of the key characteristics of the canteen service, educational programs and a participatory approach management should be implemented.

Italy has successfully improved the quality of school meals over the last decade. Actors from policy and public administration put emphasis especially on the quality of the used products; they should whenever possible come from controlled and certified production. In this paper the focus is on organic products. This paper analyses three crucial aspects of the procurement of high quality school food: a) strengths and weaknesses of organic supply chains in the perspective of producers and caterers; b) call for tenders being used as a key instrument by municipalities, being in charge of school food procurement, in order to influence the quality of school food; and c) best practice cases of municipal school food systems which combine supply chains on the one hand and municipalities and their activities on the other hand. The preliminary results suggest that an integrated approach is needed for high quality school meals. Various stakeholders should be brought together, to discuss their demands and increase the understanding

The present study investigates how to increase and improve school catering supply chains, to understand hindering factors and their perception in order to reveal drivers and constraints for POP. These include policy implementation instruments, changed values and attitudes, healthy nutrition policies, supply chain bottle necks, premium prices (to producers), successful procurement strategies and certification procedures. This work is based on a two-step survey concerning the Italian school food service system. Initially questionnaires were submitted to a qualified group of 50 producers and 50 caterers (managers of national and international companies of food service for school, local administrators who manage food services for the schools). The results of the questionnaires have subsequently been the basis to plan in-depth interviews with few decision makers who could represent both caterers and producers. The aim of this second step being to view how identified problems could be solved. The results show how the understanding and the acceptance of the organic food concept among the catering staff is crucial for the degree of success in each step of public organic procurement. The introduction of organic food in serving outlets needs appropriate support (such as qualification of key actors and a specific financial support). Other key aspects in this regard are laws and regulations promoting the procurement of quality food, policy interventions tackling more than one aspect of the problem, education programs, calls for tenders, negotiated procurement contracts and quality standards.

The paper is part of the proceedings of an iPOPY seminar. The authors describe, how supply chains of organic school food might be organised in a sustainable way in order to serve high quality food to pupils. They present a best practice case of controlled food chains (filiera controllata) from Italy, the European champion of organic school food. From the province and the city of Piacenza in the region of Emilia-Romagna, we can learn a lot about a short and certified organic food-chain, a wide range of regional and organic products provided through a shared logistic organisation among local partners, and specific tender procedures.