Comment/Opinion

For various reasons, the standard and quality of lunches provided to children of primary-school age has been declining for many years now. Whether willingly or not, policy makers, and to some extent the teaching and catering professions, have effectively turned a blind eye to this. There are those who would argue that a blanket approach to providing all Key Stage (KS) 1 children with a free lunch is a retrograde step and a total waste of national resources, or that this approach should be limited to low-income families.

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Plans by the government to set up a Hospital Food Standards Panel to review the quality of food for patients and then report back by autumn 2014 sound like the answer to a long-expressed demand for action in this area. It will be led by Age UK’s chairman Dianne Jeffrey and has the support of Health Minister Dr Dan Poulter MP. The panel’s findings will be used as the basis for new government and NHS England guidance and regulations.

At first glance, a government initiative such as this can seem to be a great idea because most of us know that childhood obesity is a growing problem and that good nutrition habits among the young are vital to the future health of our nation. Wanting our young people to have the chance to eat well every day is an aspiration we all share. But we are talking about a £600million outlay here – a monumental amount of money – with a highly dubious return on investment.

Is the out of home coffee market facing any challenges and opportunities? Research shows that somewhere in the region of 99 million ‘lost’ coffee sales in the OOH market can be attributed to poor quality; consumers have high expectations and are happier to go without than compromise.

Peter Flaxman, director of Solutions 4 Caterers, commented: “As consumer confidence slowly begins to recover, many companies are looking to expand into new sites and grow their business. This is a trend we are seeing amongst many of our clients, and that is supported by the latest industry figures.

A takeaway owner was recently fined £2000 plus £450 costs, after a customer found shards of a broken light bulb in his kebab.  Investigating officers from the London Borough of Enfield’s environmental health team discovered that a light bulb had accidentally broken whilst being changed and glass fragments had fallen into dishes in a hot display cabinet.

The assessments were conducted on self nominated premises and the critical criteria on which the analysis of small espresso coffee was based is as follows: Required liquid volume:- 25-30ml, including good crema; Acceptable extraction time:- 20-30 secs; Temperature of drink:- 65°C best, 63-67°C acceptable. Over half those assessed failed on the above criteria alone, with 47% due to under extraction whilst over extraction accounted for 7% of those who didn’t reach the desired BSA standards.

The popularity of high quality drinking chocolate is currently booming. As consumers are becoming more aware of single-origin chocolate and its intense quality, it is creating a real opportunity for coffee shop and café owners to up the ante and provide customers with a hot chocolate experience that will keep customers returning, and provide attractive profit potential too: What are the latest trends in chocolate?