As part of a nationwide campaign to improve diets and reduce the rate of diabetes and heart disease in the kingdom, the Ministry of Education has opened bidding for lucrative school canteen contracts.

Al Marai and Nadec are leading the first phase dairy and beverage competition, according to a ministry source. “The competing plants and companies will be subject to a standard qualification system before being awarded any of the bids,” said the source.

King Abdullah Public Education Development Project (Tatweer) is in charge of the qualification process.

Choosing a dairy and beverage supplier is the first step in a longer process that includes finding companies that produce various food items and pastries.

Gulf Supplies Company ranks first in the pastries category and currently supplies school canteens in Riyadh, Jeddah and the Eastern Province, serving more than 1,002,000 students.

The bidding process for supplying school canteens is open to all national companies that produce nutritious goods, as long as they comply with international health standards.

Most importantly, the ministry is searching for companies that have high quality standards in processing food and beverages, as well as healthy packaging and delivery systems that ensure the goods are sold on the same day they are produced and with production and expiration dates clearly mandated.

The specifications should be consistent with regulations and standards determined by the Saudi Arabian Standards Organizations.

These efforts coincide with the warnings issued by the Ministry of Education against selling certain food items in school canteens, including candy, chocolate, gum, chips, power and soft drinks and other items with little or no nutritional value. The source emphasized that serious efforts are underway to develop healthy school canteens throughout the country.

In the same context, officials from the ministry as well as other experts participating in a workshop held in Riyadh for developing and improving the performance of school canteens, stressed the importance of giving the utmost attention to student meals.

“Nutrition affects the academic achievement of students,” said Noura Al-Fayez, the Saudi deputy minister of education, stressing that it is the responsibility of schools to introduce healthy meals to their students, in addition to instilling proper eating habits.

Muhammad Al-Kunhol, executive president of the Saudi Arabian Food and Drug Administration, agrees with Al-Fayez, urging mothers to serve breakfast to their children at home.

“Studies show that children who have breakfast before they go to school are more intelligent and perform better than those who don’t,” he said.

“Our fathers and grandfathers used to eat their breakfast meals in the early hours of the morning, while dinner would be served at sunset, as practiced in the advanced world today,” he said.

“This is not the case anymore in our country. We eat dinner very late at night, which does not give the body enough time to digest the food before bedtime.”

The Ministry of Education has recently signed an agreement with Tatweer Education Holding Company to run all ministry school canteens, with the approval of Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah.