Schoolchildren shared lunches – Picture of the Day – Kommersant

Schoolchildren shared lunches - Picture of the Day - Kommersant

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The authorities of Ulyanovsk and the Ulyanovsk region will settle the scandal related to the nutrition of schoolchildren. It turned out that in a number of schools, children from low-income and large families are fed at separate tables according to a reduced menu. The governor of the region, Aleksey Russkikh, demanded an end to inequality. The mayor of Ulyanovsk did not rule out that the contract with the food supplier Alternativa LLC could be terminated. The catering operator, however, is confident that the city is trying to shift the blame to businesses.

Parents of Ulyanovsk schoolchildren turned to the governor of the Ulyanovsk region, Alexei Russkikh, with complaints that children who receive breakfast and lunch at schools were divided according to income level. “Those who eat for a fee receive a full-fledged ration, and beneficiaries who receive free breakfasts have been sent to a separate table and are given reduced meals,” the governor quoted the appeal of their parents. Earlier in social networks repeatedly discussed complaints about the quality of food, when “beneficiaries have porridge with water, and the rest have sausages” and that “children do not eat this gruel”.

Mayor of Ulyanovsk Dmitry Vavilin, to whom the governor forwarded the claims, confirmed that “there are a large number of complaints about the regional operator Alternativa.” “There are absolutely no legal grounds for reducing the food ration, reducing its quality and volume,” the mayor noted, promising to take “the most stringent measures” against the operator. In his Telegram channel the mayor said that “the justified indignation of parents is due to the fact that“ Alternative ”divided elementary school students: beneficiaries under the municipal program“ Care ”are provided with free breakfasts worth 67.96 rubles, and next to them are children who have breakfast for 83 rubles” .

The mayor noted that he instructed “to consider the possibility of terminating the contract with Alternativa if all the facts are confirmed.”

“In addition, we will discuss the issue of creating a municipal structure that can take over the organization of high-quality nutrition for children,” the head of the city added.

Until 2010, Ulyanovsk schoolchildren were provided with breakfasts and lunches by a specialized school catering plant, then the mayor’s office decided to outsource the service “in order to improve the quality of nutrition”. After competitive procedures, two companies occupied a dominant position in the market: Alternativa LLC (affiliated with Rostislav Edvars, a deputy of the regional legislative assembly, who at that time was also deputy secretary of the regional branch of United Russia and head of the ER faction of the legislative assembly) and SPP Trading House LLC ( now it has been replaced by Gorod Cafe LLC, which, before the change of ownership, was also affiliated with Trade House SPP).

In March 2018, the regional department of the FAS confirmed the presence of a cartel to maintain the price at the auction in the period from 2015 to 2017. On the fact of the cartel agreement, the administration of the Investigative Committee of Russia opened a criminal case, but it did not end with anything. Only one educational institution (school No. 72) since 2011 switched to the work of an independent catering unit as part of the school, for which it was criticized by the city authorities. Now the Ulyanovsk Department of Education sets School No. 72 as an example of how it is possible to provide high quality at reasonable prices.

Andrey Tolmachev, the general director of Alternativa, said that he was forced to separate the schoolchildren who were eating, because “by order of the Ministry of Education of the Ulyanovsk Region for the new academic year, the cost of breakfast for students in grades 1-4 was set at 83.28 rubles, lunch for 5-11- x classes – 137.56 rubles.

At the same time, the municipality, according to him, did not change the tariffs in the municipal program “Care” (provides compensation for the low-income and large families), leaving them at the level of last year. “So there was a significant difference in the cost of breakfasts and lunches for different categories of students,” Mr. Tolmachev explained. “The city shifted the blame to the catering operator.”

He is sure that “the cost and the menu should be the same for everyone”, “only we need to resolve the issue with prices.” It should be noted that according to the mentioned order of the regional educational department, prices for breakfasts and lunches are set for public schools “implementing the project of basic schools of the Russian Academy of Sciences.”

The head of the education department of Ulyanovsk, Svetlana Kulikova, noted that another social nutrition operator, Cafe City, was able to make breakfasts and lunches the same for everyone, and “at school No. 72, the same breakfasts cost 75 rubles for everyone. and the same dinners for all costing 119 rubles. with normal quality. Ulyanovsk Mayor Dmitry Vavilin, in an interview with Kommersant, drew attention to the fact that since May, when all children were fed the same way, nothing has changed, “but Alternativa decided to independently raise the cost of food – hence the difference arose.”

“Alternativa began to provoke us in order to induce an increase in the cost of meals, with which we categorically disagree. If we cannot agree on a price with them, then we will either bring another operator here, or create our own municipal structure,” the head of the city said, noting that in neighboring regions the cost of school meals is much lower than in Ulyanovsk. According to the mayor’s office, in Penza the cost of an elementary school breakfast paid by the city is no more than 60 rubles, in Samara – no more than 70 rubles, in Yoshkar-Ola – 53.35 rubles.

The Ministry of Education of Russia told Kommersant that “no separation of students is unacceptable, such incidents must be stopped and the region is already conducting appropriate checks.”

Sergey Titov, Ulyanovsk; Anna Vasilyeva

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