ECJ EUROPEAN Cleaning Journal

Italy may take great pride in its cuisine, but parents of children in its schools will be concerned by a new report suggesting as many as a quarter of Italian school canteens fail to meet hygiene standards.

Problems found by inspections included poor quality of food, hygiene, and menus, as well as administrative issues.??A total of 2,678 checks were carried out between 2015 and 2016, with 670 canteens failing to meet standards.

Some 37 canteens were shut down altogether, all but one of them in the south of the country, and police seized a total of 4,264 kilos of unsafe food. ??More than 100 people were handed over to judicial authorities and a further 487 to administrative authorities. In total the closures and confiscations cost €13 million.

Problems with hygiene made up the bulk of the cases, with the report citing dirty work surfaces, stale, poorly preserved and badly labelled foods, as well as quality standards not being met.