Canteen Managers Research Articles

Survey of canteens and food services in Victorian schools

AbstractObjective: To examine the characteristics of food services in Victorian government primary and secondary schools.Design and methods: A cross‐sectional postal survey of all high schools and a random sample of one quarter of primary school respondents in Victoria. A ‘School Food Services and Canteen’ questionnaire was administered by mail to the principal of each school.Subjects: Respondents included principals, canteen managers and home economics teachers from 150 primary and 208 secondary schools representing response rates of 48% and 67%, respectively.Main outcome measures: Responses to closed questions about school canteen operating procedures, staff satisfaction, food policies and desired additional services.Data analyses: Frequency and cross‐tabulation analyses and associated χ2‐tests.Results: Most schools provided food services at lunchtime and morning recess but one‐third provided food before school. Over 40% outsourced their food services, one‐third utilised volunteer parents, few involved students in canteen operations. Half of the secondary schools had vending machines; one in five had three or more. Secondary school respondents were more dissatisfied with the nutritional quality of the food service, and expressed more interest in additional services than primary respondents. Schools with food policies wanted more service assistance and used volunteer parents, student and paid canteen managers more than schools without policies.Conclusion: Most schools want to improve the nutritional quality of their food services, especially via school food policies. There is a major opportunity for professional organisations to advocate for the supply of healthier school foods.

Successful strategies to increase the consumption of fruits and vegetables: results from the Danish '6 a day' Work-site Canteen Model Study.

To investigate changes in the consumption of fruits and vegetables in work-site canteens using the tools of continuous quality improvement, and to gain knowledge of practical strategies being effective in increasing the consumption. Study design included baseline data collection, an 8 h training session for all canteen staff, goal setting, strategy development and implementation for each canteen, end-point data collection and a follow-up data collection 4 months from the end-point (1 year from baseline). The main outcome measurement was average grams of fruits and vegetables per lunch meal served per customer (net weight; potatoes not included). Five workplaces in Denmark: a military base, an electronic component distributor, a bank, a town hall and a waste-handling facility. Work-site canteen managers, staff and customers. There were significant increases in the total consumption of fruits and vegetables for all five work-site canteens from baseline to end-point, 70 g per customer on average (67, 54, 39, 88 and 103 g, respectively). The follow-up data collection showed that the canteens either maintained or significantly increased consumption, the average increase being 95 g per customer compared with baseline (77, 60, 86, 70 and 183 g, respectively). This study demonstrates a large potential for work-site canteens to increase customers' intake of fruits and vegetables at lunch and suggests a broad spectrum of strategies to compose meals that are both rich in fruits and vegetables and attractive to customers.

Industrial Feeding and Canteen Management

Industrial Feeding and Canteen Management