Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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336. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if he will increase Ireland’s participation in the EU’s school fruit scheme from the current provision of fruit for just 16 consecutive days to the EU Commission evaluation recommendation of a distribution of fruit for 35 school weeks or more. [10529/14]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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The Commission report to the European Parliament and the Council on 18th December 2013, on the European School Fruit Scheme notes that there are various approaches and conceptual designs for implementing a well-run scheme, that schemes may differ even within a Member State or region and that the external evaluation established that there is no easy way of calculating the most efficient scheme as several results could be used as performance indicators.

The main aim of the report was to establish if well functioning School Fruit Schemes have been established in MS. In this context, Ireland received a positive narrative, particularly in the area of accompanying measures. The report noted that “research conducted in Ireland demonstrates that their Food Dudes Programme, which is based on strong accompanying measures, is essential for a sustainable increase in children’s fruit and vegetable consumption. For other Member States which adopt different approaches, the overall short-term impact of the accompanying measures is difficult to evaluate at this juncture”.

The overall conclusion of the Commission report is that it is still too early to draw definitive conclusions, particularly with regard to its sustainable impact on children’s eating habits. However, its report enumerates recommendations from various evaluations, including by external consultants, which were put forward to the Commission. These included higher EU co-financing, aiming at a sustained distribution for 35 school weeks or more, diversity of offer (at least 5 to 10 different products), continued distribution free of charge, high frequency of offering, ideally three times a week, extending the target group, reducing the administrative burden, encouraging more accompanying measures and making these eligible for EU aid. Some of these recommendations were adopted in the context of CAP Reform i.e. increasing the budget and the rates of EU co-financing and making accompanying measures eligible for co-financing under certain conditions.

In Ireland the EU school fruit /Food Dudes scheme uses the principles of repeat tasting together with rewards and the use of role models in the form of Food Dudes characters to encourage primary schoolchildren to develop a taste for fruit and vegetables. The focus is on presenting an attractive package to children to encourage consumption of fruit and vegetables in a way which appeals to them, rather than on simply making fruit and vegetables available over a prolonged period. Published studies have shown that this is effective in achieving a sustained increase in consumption of fruit and vegetables and Ireland received a World Health Organisation award. The repeat tasting of four fruit and four vegetables over a period of 16 days gives schoolchildren an opportunity to develop a taste for a variety of fruit and vegetables.

Surveys of parents and teachers show satisfaction rates of over 90% and an evaluation in 2011 showed primary schoolchildren bringing on average 20% more fruit and 42% more vegetables to school in their lunchboxes and consuming them.

In the context of the reformed CAP and other emerging Commission proposals, and following the completion of the National roll out of the current programme in 2014, my Department will be examining a follow on Food Dudes programme in due course.