This new law aims to promote green on the plates of schools and universities from 2023. We take stock. The National Assembly adopted on May 4, at first reading, the Climate and Resilience bill.
“Support a healthy and sustainable diet for all, with low greenhouse gas emissions”
What the law says ? First of all it is necessary to understand the current context in the canteens. To date, a weekly vegetarian menu is already in place in the form of an experiment since November 1, 2019. “Public and private managers of school catering services are required to offer a vegetarian menu at least once a week. This menu can be composed of animal or vegetable proteins and respects, when they apply, the rules relating to the nutritional quality of the planned meals ”.
But parliamentarians want to go further. Going to Article 59 of the text adopted on first reading by the Assembly, we can read: “No later than January 1, 2023, since they usually offer a multiple choice of menus, managers, public and private, of collective catering services of the State, its public establishments and national public enterprises are required to offer a daily choice of a vegetarian menu “.
One of the strong measures of this text is therefore the daily (and no longer just weekly) implementation of a vegetarian option in school and university canteens. This is an action based on volunteering, the vegetarian menu will not be imposed.
Green menu: better quality and less waste
According to a survey published recently by Greenpeace and Vegetarian Association of France, the introduction of a green menu is relatively well received in the various public and private structures. “The 3 main motivations cited by the canteens surveyed offering a daily vegetarian option are the guarantee of a balanced meal for all the guests regardless of their eating habits, the fight against the stigma linked to denominational menus, a lower environmental impact. “, can we read in the report. To carry out this survey, Greenpeace and the Vegetarian Association of France requested 64 structures, including colleges, high schools, university and administrative restaurants as well as a hospital and penitentiary establishment. These places serve an average of 14 to 39,000 covers per day.
Thus, for 85% of the structures surveyed, the introduction of this measure was not associated with an increase in food waste. The vegetarian menu will generate less raw material cost than the standard menu. Children, high school or college students will also experience a move upmarket in their plates (more organic and local products, more homemade).
According to Greenpeace, setting up a vegetarian menu can be good for the planet. The organization judges that if all these communities were to go for a veggie dish every day, we would save ourselves from the emission of around 1.35 million tonnes of CO2.
