In brief: Deputy Louise Doublet is calling for greater investment in healthy school food, arguing that cost-of-living pressures were overlooked when Jersey’s free fruit trial was wound up. The pilot, which ran in four primary schools since 2024, was ended by the Education Minister on the grounds of low uptake and wastage. Fresh fruit has since been folded into a broader hot school meals programme delivered by UK firm Apetito Limited.
The fruit bowl empties
Since 2024, children in four Jersey government primary schools have been able to help themselves to apples, bananas and other fruit as part of a pilot scheme. It sounded wholesome enough, but the BBC reports that Minister for Education and Lifelong Learning Catherine Curtis pulled the plug after concluding it was leading to “a lot of wastage” and that parents had “actually asked” for fruit to be incorporated into the school food programme rather than offered separately. In other words, the children were voting with their feet, or rather their mouths, and the fruit was losing.
The matter was debated in the States Assembly on 29 September, where Minister Curtis told the assembly that the scheme “hadn’t resulted in much of an increase in children actually consuming fruit and vegetables.” Deputy Doublet, to her credit, acknowledged that point directly: “I do accept that,” she told the BBC.
Doublet pushes for more investment
Acceptance of the evidence, however, has not dampened Doublet’s broader ambitions. Her argument is that the scheme’s cost-of-living benefit to families was never properly measured, and that ending it “at a time when the cost of living is still increasing” has been “quite hard for some families.” It is a fair point to raise: a scheme can fail on one metric while succeeding on another, and if nobody was tracking the financial relief it provided to households, the full picture was never on the table.
Doublet’s preferred solution is more investment, not less. “Personally I would like to see more investment in healthy food especially if it’s locally grown food to help families with the cost of living,” she told the BBC. She also expressed a desire to see the funded hot meals programme extended further, describing it as something that “hits the cost of living for parents” while providing healthy meals for children.
Apetito and the frozen question
The hot school meals programme that has absorbed the fruit provision is delivered under a contract with UK company Apetito Limited. When asked about that arrangement, Doublet described it as the “best available option,” while acknowledging public concern about freshness. Her reassurance was measured: “My understanding is that the meals are actually frozen rather than artificially preserved.” Whether that distinction will satisfy parents who had hoped for something a little more farm-to-fork is another matter. The Government of Jersey has been approached for comment, the BBC notes, though none had been provided at the time of publication.
The government announced in September that fresh fruit would be included in the school food programme going forward, so the nutritional ambition has not been entirely abandoned. The question Doublet is pressing is whether the financial ambition, helping Jersey families cope with the cost of living through subsidised healthy food, is being pursued with equal vigour.
Source: BBC News
