A Co Monaghan based chef has highlighted the importance of providing young people with fresh and nutritious meals.
Karl Breen of Wild Thyme Restaurant in Threemilehouse provides over 300 hot school meals to nearby schools every day.
The Hot School Meals Programme is a Department of Social Protection initiative that was championed by former Minister Heather Humphreys.
It provides nutritious, hot lunches to primary school children across Ireland to tackle food poverty and support nutrition.
Award-wining chef Karl Breen believes getting local cafes and restaurants involved with the scheme to supply local schools with quality meals is the "way forward."
While Karl hopes to get more schools on board next year, he highlighted his concerns with the new procurement service describing it as "very rigorous."
Karl says it makes it harder for smaller businesses to compete with larger industries.
Speaking to Northern Sound, the local business owner hopes that the Government can review the current process and make it easier for smaller businesses to get involved and supply local schools with quality food that our young people deserve.
He told Northern Sound: "Lately there has been bad publicity around the school meals, but it’s fair to say that it is a good scheme when it’s done right. Unfortunately, many of the meals provided to schools aren’t fresh and have been re-heated, therefore we wanted to do better and give young people a fresh and nutritious meal.
"Some kids go a full day without a hot meal so it’s very important that the providers offer something hot, fresh and nutritious. We said if we were going to do it, we were going to do it right and focus on delivering a good service for kids."
