The supply of free fruit and vegetables to junior schools as specified by the EU school fruit scheme will continue in January 2011. Schools can already register. A total of more than 4 million Euros has been made available for this scheme, half coming from sponsors and the other half being paid by the EU. Three sponsors, The Greenery, Freshweb.nl and Fruitschool, are ensuring that more children receive free fruit and vegetables during this school year than they did last year.
The EU School Fruit Programme aims to be an easily attainable means of stimulating schoolchildren to eat more fruit and vegetables together in the class every day. A new Dutch term has even been coined to describe this collective eating of fruit and vegetables: gruiten [‘eating fruitables’]. This incentive programme means that, for a certain period, schools receive fruit and vegetables for their pupils free of charge. At the end of this free period, parents and schools decide whether they want to continue, either by participating in the School ‘Fruitables’ Programme or in another way. The School 'Fruitables' Programme is part of Wageningen UR (University & Research centre).
Implementation of the EU School Fruit Programme
The EU School Fruit Programme for the 2010-2011 school year means that junior school pupils receive between 20 and 30 servings of fruit and vegetables free of charge over an unbroken period of five to ten weeks. The available funding is sufficient to supply 140 schools. Any junior school is eligible to take part in the programme, and schools decide for themselves whether they will register or not. The only condition is that the whole school should take part.
Suppliers
For the 2010-2011 school year, there are three suppliers for delivering fruit and vegetables to schools, namely The Greenery, Freshweb.nl and Fruitschool. On registering, each school chooses the supplier they wish to team up with. Any other companies wishing to sponsor this activity should contact the Horticultural Commodities Board.
There are two periods in which fruit and vegetables can be supplied. The first will begin directly after the Christmas holidays and the second is in April 2011. The school chooses its supply period on registering.