Surge in school canteens selling substandard, overpriced food

by Carol Aloysius

Several school canteens islandwide continue to put students' health at risk by selling outdated food unfit for human consumption, Deputy Director, Regional Consumer Affairs Authority (CAA) Asela Bandara told the Sunday Observer.

Due to increasing number of complaints from parents, students and teachers, an islandwide program was launched last week on a directive by Internal Trade Minister Johnston Fernando to conduct islandwide raids on all school canteens. Over 1,200 canteens had been inspected in the past few days in schools in various parts of the island. "We found that many of them had beverages and pre-packed food with expired dates while some items were over priced. Popular packeted food including chocolates, biscuits and cadju nuts were being sold without proper labels. All school canteens must display a price list of all food items being sold, but only a very few are adhere these rules which are included in the Food Act', Bandara said.

The dates of some readymade frozen food such as Wattalapan, ice cream and ice packets had also expired.

"It is dangerous to sell such items especially to schoolchildren and offenders will be punished he said". Some owners of school canteens had been already prosecuted. "The canteens of those who violate regulations will be closed.

We have already closed some canteens in certain schools including some leading schools in Colombo".