The month of September will finally see millions and millions of children Italians return to school. The health emergency, at that point, should be sufficiently under control to allow young students to resume their routine, made up of smiles, emotions, freedom, moments of growth in the company of friends and teachers. Most of the habits, however, will necessarily have to be reviewed and corrected: starting from the entrance to the classroom for lessons, to arrive until the time of lunch in canteen.

Yes, because just like what happened for company restaurants – and as the Technical-Scientific Committee set up to deal with the epidemic of coronavirus – school canteens will also have to be rethought. Getting to a common, applicable and safe protocol, however, could be more complicated than expected: and that's exactly why Cirfood, a cooperative company engaged in collective catering, has decided to launch the project We feed the school, in collaboration with the Municipality of Reggio Emilia and the support of Politecnico di Milano and ofUniversity of Gastronomic Sciences of Pollenzo. Objective: to make the most of the summer months to identify the rules and good practices of a new normality still to be invented.

From school to community

There safety is – and will remain – without any doubt the top priority in view of the return to class in September. So that they can reopen their doors it is therefore essential that children and their families acquire new social habits, new awareness of behavior that ensure a safe return. For six weeks, from mid-June to the end of July, the children of Reggio Emilia who will participate in the summer centres of the city will be joined by educators and experts to learn a new way of studying, eating, playing and, more generally, living outside the home. All in a path that intends to touch digital, artistic, food, health, mobility and civic sense.

But the project will obviously not only affect the little ones. It will test all the actors involved in the necessary changes due to the coronavirus, from institutions to private companies, from teachers to families, from complementary mobility services to catering services. The Polytechnic of Milan, with a mixed working group between the Department of Management Engineering and the Department of Architecture and Urban Studies, will work in this sense on a real system experimentation, applying a model that will evaluate the school as an enabling moment for the restart of the whole community. With a particular focus on value of food and its implications. Cirfood, for its part, will take care of promoting the activities of food education, through games and workshops. And, at the same time, with the consultation of the University of Gastronomic Sciences of Pollenzo, he will take care of developing innovative solutions so that children can be guaranteed a healthy and balanced meal, in total safety.

The new canteen

It is quite clear that the restart of school catering will have to foresee new rules to ensure that each student is able to consume their meal in the best possible way, safely, of course, but also with the right dose of light-heartedness. Why not, contrary to what one might think, the canteen it is not a simple accessory service of the school, as the president of Cirfood points out Chiara Nasi: «Mealtime has always had a real social and nutritional function. The closure of schools and catering services has therefore led to a double loss for families and children. Just think that for some, the meal at school was the only healthy part of the day and Istat data confirms it. In Italy one in four children is obese due to an unbalanced diet. Our goal is to return to guarantee an important moment of conviviality, proper nutrition and nutrition education to all 300 thousand students we serve every day in over 480 Municipalities in Italy .

It will be essential, however, to review every single aspect of the stay in the canteen, even from a strictly practical point of view. For this reason, various solutions are under consideration, which could be tested in the coming months in Reggio Emilia: from Maintenance crew for the entrances, which would therefore lead to fewer students sharing the canteen tables at the same time, the possibility of taking advantage of unprecedented spaces for lunch, such as gyms, courtyards and yes, even wanting the same classes; up to the distribution of lunch-box – as suggested by the same Ministry of Education in its guidelines for reopening – or more technological solutions, which could for example allow parents to choose the daily menu for their children via app, avoiding them having to queue with the tray in hand in front of the positions of first, second, vegetables and so on.

Help for parents too

No, the school is not a car park for children, but there is no doubt that it also plays a fundamental role in the life of parents, to allow them to work with serenity. And it is precisely thinking of the parents, and more generally of the relationship between school and families, that an additional innovative service could be experienced in Reggio Emilia: a sort of take-away on reservation, which would allow mom and dad to collect, together with their child, even dinner to be heated at home. The menu, in this case, would always be designed to ensure a healthy and balanced meal, and could be withdrawn directly from a personal locker.

"The start of the project We feed the School in Reggio Emilia is important to us because this is where we were born and have our headquarters", continues Chiara Nasi. "It is the place where the Crifood District will be built, the innovation center dedicated to the themes of nutrition and the future of food, and where the so-called Nutrition Valley. A terroir on which traditions, skills and experiments gravitate for an innovation of social and cultural value through food, which remains a real heritage of the whole Emilia-Romagna region ".