r/ireland • u/theseanbeag • 7h ago
Food and Drink School lunch provider, The Lunch Bag, ordered to shut by Food Safety Authority.
I'm surprised this isn't much bigger news. No notification was given by my kids school that the hot lunch provider was closed down due to the inspector finding rodent droppings in a number of places.
https://www.fsai.ie/news-and-alerts/latest-news/twelve-closure-orders-served-on-food-businesses-in
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u/andstep234 7h ago
It's one location, not the "The lunch bag" in it's entirety.
It's a kitchen based in a GAA club serving a few local schools. So unless you're in Portlaoise there's no reason to notify your kids school.
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u/theseanbeag 7h ago
You don't think it speaks to the standards monitored and enforced by the company?
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u/andstep234 7h ago
There's a Centra on the list, do you think all of the Centras in the country should warn their customers?
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u/BillyMooney 7h ago
Is it a franchise operation, like Centra?
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u/struggling_farmer 7h ago
Don't think so, to my knowledge they are centrally prepared and delivered to local town facility they rent to be cooked or heated and then delivered to the school.
Neighbour works for one of those bog operators. It's 5 hours a day, start at 09:00 finish at 14:00. Or something like that.
From what she said its generally a stay at home mothers doing it as suits dropping off kids and collecting them. They are directly employed and hire the hall or gaa club or where it is
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u/theseanbeag 7h ago
Does Centra provide meals to primary schools?
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u/Funsize83 7h ago
As a primary school teacher, I can assure you that it certainly does. Privately bought, sure, but plenty of primary school kids eat centra bought / prepared food for lunch. Daily.
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u/shanklymrshankly Cork bai 7h ago
Yes??? Lol
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u/theseanbeag 6h ago
Where?
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u/Unrequited_Anal Cork bai 2h ago
Some schools use centra for school meals. I know a local one (not going to dox myself) used to use them for the school lunches years ago.
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u/Eviladhesive 7h ago
It does, but to be honest nobody really wants to create a big panic about the situation.
They need to get their stuff in order or there'll be more closures. I'm glad they're being punished, but I don't want a huge national scandal to follow.
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u/ThreeTreesForTheePls 6h ago
No, I think it speaks of the lads who run it in Portlaoise.
If you got gone off milk from SuperValu, would you say that this is a representation of all Avonmore products? How about all SuperValu stores?
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u/SkippyCraig 7h ago
The closure order was in relation to their operations at Timahoe GAA Club near Portlaoise, so presumably it only affected schools served by that kitchen in surrounding areas of Co Laois / the Midlands.
I'd guess they covered it by doing extra meals from Nenagh (their HQ) until the issue was resolved.
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u/damienga15de 7h ago
My wife works for them as relief staff, she got a hsa inspection last week. The inspector said she never seen an oven as clean and everything was above board.
Unfortunately there's always going to be bad staff in every company
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u/tnegun 6h ago
I've seen a couple of their kitchens, in GAA clubs, both I saw looked ok but they are not purpose-built. One was a converted changing room and the other a converted storage room. They don't seem to prepare food on site just reheat it. Handy money for the clubs, though, but likely in complete breach of their planning so it would only take one pissed-off neighbour to shut them down until planning was regularised.
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u/thisispeakphysical 7h ago
There was one for Glanmore foods in drogheda too last year who supply a lot of the school lunches in the northeast.
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u/ThreeTreesForTheePls 6h ago
For what it’s worth, everyone should have a look at the FSAI site, or even sign up for specific parts of their email listings.
You will be blown away by how often specific brands of food batches are recalled.
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u/GeraltShepard 7h ago
Their food is outrageously poor quality. I am not surprised at all but this. Most of the kids in my daughter's class had stopped ordering from them before this came to light.
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u/theseanbeag 7h ago
Yeah, it's gone pretty bad. Was ok starting out but my kids won't even eat the stuff they did like now because it's always soggy.
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u/Accomplished_Work376 6h ago
Our child's school lunches are abysmal, bland rubbish covered in ketchup
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u/Capable-Cover-917 6h ago
The real question to be asked here is why are school lunches privatized in the first place? Private business fulfilling government contracts are known to provide the shoddiest, low quality service possible in pursuit of profits. And they can get away with it, because unlike standard retail, the purchaser is not the eventual consumer of the service.
You can say what you want about socialism, but it's an obvious fact that feeding children should not be left up to the free market.
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u/AlwaysTravel 4h ago
If the private company has bad quantity food, the schools can move to a different company. We are fairly rural and our two schools are using two different companies. The quality seems quite good.
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u/muttonwow 3h ago
The real question to be asked here is why are school lunches privatized in the first place? Private business fulfilling government contracts are known to provide the shoddiest, low quality service possible in pursuit of profits.
Because the electorate votes for parties that throw money at the private sector to fulfil public needs. And the monied people of Ireland refuse to glance at a more left party that'd actually build infrastructure.
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u/Tyrannosaurus-Shirt 48m ago
The lunch bag food went fairly shite. Massive drop off in the number of kids getting it. Nobody wants to eat soggy wedges for lunch.
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u/rmp266 Crilly!! 12m ago
I went to a rural primary school in Derry in the 90s, and we had a canteen and kitchen and dinner ladies that made school meals every day. I brought lunch in but the option was there it was like £1.50 for the school dinner. It was fairly common in all schools around us. Why is this concept completely alien to modern schools in the South 30 years later? The only option is a for profit food company delivering cheap muck in boxes? Why don't schools down here have canteens and dinner ladies on site cooking up simple real food?
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u/Witty-Wrongdoer-8546 26m ago
The school I work in used to have the local cafe contracted to serve soup, sandwiches and hot dinners at lunch with cookies as a treat on a Friday. Most of the staff would eat it for lunch let alone the students, it was so good and the price was reasonable.
I wouldn’t feed my dog what they serve the kids now.
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7h ago
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u/DorkyODorable 6h ago
We had them in our school and my daughter said she saw all the containers stored in the disabled toilet 🤢🤢🤢
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u/UisceEireann 7h ago
It's not the main location, that's in Tipp I believe. That's just a provider under that umbrella.