That is how one of our key speakers got to Petnica Science Centre for our first Strength2Food hybrid forum on Monday, 27th November to discuss the topic "How to improve the quality of children's meals in primary schools". The event was held in Serbia's unique Science Centre, an independently-funded organisation providing research opportunities for primary and secondary school children from both Serbia and the rest of Europe, 90 km south-west of Belgrade near the town of Valjevo. That meant a Read more

Two representatives from Academia Barilla, Roberto Bassi and Ilaria Rossi, part of the Strength2Food partner BARILLA, spent 20-22nd November in Serbia visiting several primary schools taking part in the school meals pilot scheme of WP9.1. In total, nine schools were visited in Belgrade, Novi Sad and Mionica, a rural town south of Belgrade. The objectives of the visit were to see kitchen facilities and equipment, discuss menus with school cooks and challenges currently faced with school meal provision. Every school Read more

This time it was TV Pink to interview BSN's Ratko Bojović for the 6 am Daybreak programmebroadcast on 1st November. Although the stimulus for the interview was the food poisoning outbreak in several Belgrade schools reported in October, this time word had evidently got around that there is a major project in Serbia that is doing something to improve school meals. Thus, the focus of the interview was mainly to find out what Strength2Food is doing in Serbia and how Read more

The recently-reported food poisoning scare in Belgrade primary schools (see news item of 6th October) led to another interview on Serbian television; this time on Jutarnji Program of RTS 1 (the equivalent of BBC's Breakfast TV), broadcast live on Friday, 13th October. Gordana Kosanović, representing the Ministry of Education and Science (MPNTR), and Steve Quarrie, representing BSN (EUTA), presented the Ministry's new initiative to identify how the quality of meals for primary schoolchildren in Serbia can be improved, and the Read more

Steve Quarrie, representing colleagues from BSN (EUTA) and MPNTR, presented the Strength2Food project and aspects of its activities in Serbia in the session on Rural Development and Agro-economy of Agrosym 2017. The talk focused on the relationship between schools preparing their own meals, in our four target areas of Belgrade, Novi Sad, around Valjevo and around Arilje, and their suppliers - typically distributors collecting foodstuffs from a wide range of sources, both within Serbia and from abroad. Some of our Read more

Four primary schools in Belgrade have just suffered from an outbreak of food poisoning from a meal provided by a catering company, with 135 children suffering from severe stomach problems and seven briefly hospitalised (Tuesday, 3rd October). This has raised the issue of schools providing their own meals to ensure that health and safety standards are not compromised by awarding tenders to the caterer offering the cheapest meals, whatever the quality. Fortuitously for Strength2Food, this outbreak occurred the day that Read more