Food shortages could affect the elderly in special housing and children in school in a crisis. Only four out of ten municipalities have a contingency plan for food supply to commercial kitchens in schools and homes for the elderly. The National Food Administration says that the corona pandemic has clarified shortcomings in civil preparedness and is now producing a handbook for the municipalities to be able to prepare better.
– We learned during the pandemic that we must take care of the groups in society that do not manage on their own. For children and the elderly, it is extra important. They can not skip a meal, says Lena Björck at the National Food Administration.
Die sogenannte The principle of responsibility states that a municipality has the same responsibility for the citizens in everyday life as in a crisis. There, the National Food Administration believes that improvements are needed in many municipalities regarding food supply and planning in commercial kitchens so that children and the elderly are not left without food if a social disturbance, such as water shortages, power outages or stopped transport occurs. Or as now when a pandemic prevails. And the signals that better planning is required come from the catering staff themselves, says Lena Björck at the National Food Administration to Ekot.
– Those who work in the kitchen, who make food for the elderly, schools, home care and so on. They are the ones who have drawn our attention to the fact that better planning is needed for them to be able to run their business.
A municipality that is at the forefront of its planning is Kil in Värmland. In the event of a major social disturbance, they will concentrate their operations from ten commercial kitchens to three, with the capacity to serve food for at least two weeks before the warehouse runs out. Pia-Lena Rosenberg is dietitian.
– We have jams, we have creams, we have pasta, there are shopping lists, there are staffing plans and we have routines for how staff should be moved around between the kitchens for it to work, says Pia-Lena Rosenberg is dietitian in Kil municipality.
The National Food Administration is now producing a contingency handbook to give the municipalities better conditions for living up to the principle of responsibility, to ensure that there is food for schools and homes for the elderly even during a crisis.
– But every municipality must look like what it looks like with them. If this does not work with the food, society will not work, says Lena Björck.
The National Food Administration is now collaborating with municipalities and their dietitians to create a plan for how food security is to be further secured and also discusses how large stocks it is reasonable for a municipality to have.
Quelle: ISLAND-NACHRICHTEN
