A company in Nenagh, Co Tipperary, which makes hot school meals for primary school children, is to take on an additional 240 employees to prepare and deliver over 100,000 free meals a day, as the scheme expands next year.
It is part of a €7.5m expansion by The Lunch Bag, which has been making hot school meals for children for the past five years.
It already employs 200 people and is planning to more than double that next year, and to offer part-time work for a further 450 staff, employed to assemble the meals in schools.
The major expansion of the company's food preparation and assembly facility at Lisbunny, just outside Nenagh, comes on the back of the announcement by the Government of major plans to grow its school hot meals programme considerably in the coming years.
From a small pilot scheme involving 30 schools in 2019, it has expanded to 1,700 schools and 300,000 primary school children benefitting, at a cost of €94.4m last year.
The Government announced a further expansion of the scheme in the Budget, providing additional funding for another 900 non-DEIS schools involving preparing and distributing meals for a further 150,000 pupils.
And it is the Government’s intention to make the free hot meals scheme universal in every school by 2030.
The Lunch Bag is now responding to that increased demand by expanding its facilities and taking on an additional 240 people to scale up the operation from 35,000 meals prepared each day to 100,000 meals.
The meals are prepared and packed and then labelled with each individual child’s name, and then delivered by truck to each school, where they are placed in an oven by a designated food person, also employed by The Lunch Bag, in time for distribution at the allotted lunchtime.
Geraldine Killian, who is managing director of The Lunch Bag, said the emphasis is on high quality nutritious food brought to the school desk every day.
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"It’s a massive operation and our expansion means we will be more than doubling our workforce adding more general operatives, HR and administrative staff, logistics staff and van drivers.
"We are also providing an additional 450 part time jobs for on-site school roles, people who will administer the food packs and which will suit parents who may want to just work during school hours," she said.
"Our meals are based on what the nutritional best practice is for children, including their five a day, many of them hidden in the food so that fussy eaters are not put off. And children have a wide choice. We prepare pastas, curries, spice bags, roast meat meals and vegetarian meals, as well as health snacks with fruit.
"The impact on childhood nutrition will be monumental, as we ensure a minimum of 65,000 children every day will have hot healthy and tasty meals delivered to their desks," she said.
Her business partner, Ray Nangle, said it has been shown throughout Europe and other places that hot nutritious meals have major benefits for kids at school improving their performance, concentration and attention.
"It has major benefits for families too. It puts money back in parents pockets and spares them the hassle each morning of the time-consuming school lunch preparation. This means parents have more time with their children at breakfast time, knowing they will receive a healthy and nutritious meal at school," he said.
One of the schools benefitting from the scheme is Scoil Mhuire NS in Borrisokane in Co Tipperary, where over 120 pupils receive their hot lunch every day.
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School principal Sarah Leahy said they had noticed a big difference in concentration and attendance at the school, as children want to get their own meals at school.
"In addition it gives them choice and variety as they want to know what their friends are eating and are trying out different options," she said.
The school hot meals programme has been developed by the Department of Social Protection after Minister Heather Humphreys announced landmark plans last Spring to extend the programme on the back of a report which showed huge benefits for children’ concentration, wellbeing and physical and mental health.
A further €42.5m was announced in this month’s Budget to extend the programme and to have all schools availing of the scheme in the next six years.
"It is my overriding ambition that every child born this year will have access to a hot school, meal by the time they reach school going age," Minister Humphreys said.
