Greenpeace, which conducted a survey on school canteens in France, called for action to serve more vegetarian menus in schools, for the benefit of children and the climate.

Community efforts

More and more public and private schools are serving a vegetarian menu per week to their pupils in the canteens. This is the result of a survey published on Tuesday, September 22nd, by Greenpeace. Overall, “74% of schoolchildren eat vegetarian food every week,” said the environmental association to the 20 Minutes newspaper. The NGO praised the efforts of communities that offer increasingly diverse menus to replace the omelettes served in the past.

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The worrying situation in secondary schools canteens

This change has taken place since implementing the Egalim law in 2019, but they have not always followed the mechanism. The situation is worrying in middle and high schools, with 41% of middle schools and 48% of high schools not complying with the law. Greenpeace found less diversity of meals and less organic food with 1 in 10 vegetarian meals in these establishments, compared to 1 in 4 in primary schools.

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Greenpeace’s message

Nearly 12 million students from kindergarten to high school eat more than a billion meals in the canteen every year. Greenpeace, therefore, calls for a movement to offer more vegetarian menus in these establishments, for children and for the climate. It is important to reduce the overall consumption of meat “when 24% of the greenhouse gases emitted by France are because of the production of our food and primarily to animal husbandry,” warned the environmental protection association.