The new semester has just started. Students in the compulsory education stage in rural Xiji County returned to school happily as usual. However, the biggest difference from previous years is that starting this semester, students can enjoy a free and delicious lunch every noon. This spring semester, 52,934 students from 366 rural primary schools in Xiji County, the Special Education School, and Jiangtai Middle School (the only pilot middle school in the county) have fully enjoyed the national nutrition improvement plan. These children can eat a hot and fragrant lunch every day during their schooling.
"It tastes as good as what my mom makes."
In the dining hall of Jiangtai Township Central Primary School, fourth-grade student Zhang Dong was eating his delicious lunch with big bites. When asked about the lunch provided by the school now, the shy Zhang Dong simply said, "It tastes as good as what my mom makes." Originally, Zhang Dong's home is 10 li away from the school. Because it's far from the school, he doesn't go home for lunch on weekdays, and his lunch is the steamed bun he brings from home in the morning. And he could only eat a hot meal when he gets home after school in the afternoon.
Fifth-grade student Zhao Jinhai rents a house near the school with his sister who is in junior high school. Normally, his sister cooks lunch for him. Since cooking takes time, both siblings' academic performance hasn't been good. When asked about the greatest benefit of having a free lunch, he said, "With ready-made meals every day, my sister and I can focus on studying."
Junior three student Zhao Miaomiao lives in Dongpo Village, Jiangtai Township. Her home is 10 kilometers away from the school, so she stays in the school dormitory. Every Sunday when she returns to school, she has to bring enough dry food for the whole week. In the past, she ate steamed buns for breakfast, lunch, and dinner all week. It's still okay in winter, but when summer comes and the weather warms up, the buns start to mold by Wednesday. When asked how she eats moldy buns, she said, "I cut off the moldy part and eat the rest." She also said that when she told her mother about the free lunch, her mother was so happy that she cried and reminded her, "Now that the conditions are better, you should study hard."
Corporate operation, efficient, safe, and reassuring
The dining hall of Jiangtai Township Central Primary School supplies lunches to more than 4,200 people from Jiangtai Primary School, Jiangtai Middle School, and nine village primary schools in the Chuan Dao area of Jiangtai Township. How does the dining hall ensure the quality and quantity of meals for so many people? According to the person in charge of the Education Bureau, all equipment and utensils in the dining hall are purchased through government bidding, while the operation of the dining hall is handled by Xi'an Hongjinpeng Catering Culture Company.
How effective is the corporate operation? With such questions, we visited the kitchen of the dining hall. The clean and tidy kitchen environment gives a very comfortable feeling. Staff must wear shoe covers when entering the kitchen, and all kitchen staff wear masks. The kitchen is divided into hygiene zones, and any dirt on the floor must be cleaned immediately. The modern kitchen appliances in the kitchen are refreshing, including the "Auteman" noodle robot, computerized stir-fry machines capable of cooking over 100 dishes, automatic vegetable cutters, automatic meal dispensers, and automatic rice production lines, ensuring both the quality of the dishes and the safety of the food. The chopping boards, knives, and refrigeration equipment used in the kitchen are classified and stored according to food safety standards for "raw, cooked, and semi-finished" products. Since the central dining hall of Jiangtai Township also delivers lunches to 1,045 students in nine schools in the Chuan Dao area of Jiangtai Township, a special temperature-controlled meal delivery vehicle was procured to ensure the safety and taste of the delivered meals. The thermal boxes inside the vehicle were designated supplies for the Beijing Olympics, with excellent thermal retention, keeping the temperature basically unchanged within two hours.
Wang Yanrong, the company's responsible person, introduced: "The management and service personnel of the central dining hall of Jiangtai Township Primary School number 103 people. The company has strict management systems, especially in hygiene, where even details are required, such as kitchen staff must change clothes when using the restroom, and there are clear requirements for drinking water and personal hygiene of the staff."
All processing procedures in the dining hall are supervised by the school. Every Monday, the company provides the school with the menu for the week, which is displayed prominently in the dining hall after approval by the school. This not only ensures the nutritional balance of the meals but also plays an effective supervisory role.
"Served in bowls, eaten in stomachs"
Since the launch of the free lunch program, the Xiji County Party Committee and Government have treated the free lunch program as a "top leader project". Relevant departments handle special matters specially to ensure that children can eat free lunches on time. The free lunch program in Xiji County adopts three forms of catering: cafeteria catering, corporate delivery, and household定点托餐. That is, schools with conditions can entrust nearby restaurants to deliver lunches based on school requirements; large-scale schools can build their own canteen kitchens and implement on-campus dining; and for remote teaching points, qualified households around can be entrusted to provide lunches.
Since this is the first implementation of the free lunch, all utensils like pots, bowls, ladles, etc., are new. To ensure the safety of consumption, in Xiji County, the first meal cooked with newly purchased utensils in each school is tasted by school leaders and teachers; additionally, during the normal implementation of the free lunch, teachers pay out-of-pocket to accompany students at every meal to ensure the safety of the free lunch. Accompanying teachers must make detailed records of the quantity, quality, shortcomings, and suggestions for improvement after each meal.
Before the implementation of the free lunch program, Xiji County recruited more than 360 chefs county-wide. These chefs underwent training, exams, physical examinations, and other processes before being assigned to various schools. Deputy Director Wang Ziyuan of the Xiji County Education Bureau, who oversees the free lunch program, said, "Through the close cooperation of relevant departments across the county, we have spared no effort to ensure the full implementation of the free lunch within the specified time. As the education department, we will strengthen supervision, ensure food safety, and ensure that four yuan goes into the students' bowls and into their stomachs."
"Can eat free meals all day long"
To enable students to better enjoy the good policy, schools have thought of every possible way. Since Jiangtai Middle School was listed as a pilot middle school this year, apart from supplying lunches to primary school students, the dining hall of Jiangtai Township Central Primary School also serves over 2,000 middle school students. How to ensure that so many people can eat well for lunch? Originally, elementary school classes end one period earlier than middle school at noon, so primary school students eat first. After they finish, it's time for middle school students to get out of class. However, due to the larger number of middle school students, they are divided into two groups to eat.
To avoid waste and facilitate management, the school uses a mix of high and low grades, male and female pairing, and fat and thin pairing to allocate tables. Each table is numbered, and each student is also numbered, making it clear who sits where. Therefore, despite over a thousand people dining simultaneously, the scene is neither crowded nor chaotic.
According to Meng Yifeng, principal of Jiangtai Central Primary School, in the past, the "one supplement fund" for rural boarding schools was merely distributing convenience foods of equal value to students, such as milk and instant noodles. Now, after piloting free lunches in middle schools, the school's dining hall can cook dinner as well. The school recharges the "one supplement fund" onto the students' meal cards, allowing middle school students to not only enjoy free lunches but also "free dinners." Additionally, with the addition of nutritious breakfasts, students in the pilot middle schools implementing the free lunch program can eat free meals all day long. This way, unhygienic practices like Zhao Miaomiao "cutting off the moldy part of the steamed bun and eating the rest" will become history.