Bordeaux, December 18, 2012. - Self-service school canteen of the Anatole France elementary school in Bordeaux.

- Photo: Sebastien Ortola -

S. ORTOLA / 20 MINUTES

  • The environmentalist majority will gradually introduce a second vegetarian menu in 2022 in Bordeaux canteens.

  • It emphasizes the benefits for the environment and for the health of children, used to consuming too much animal protein.

  • It is also an opportunity to improve the quality of the dishes more generally.

Lentils, red beans, chickpeas and various vegetables will find a more important place in the plates of the little Bordeaux residents.

In accordance with the Egalim law, there is already one vegetarian meal per week in Bordeaux canteens.

And like in many other collective restorations, a daily meatless alternative already exists.

It will be transformed from September 2021 into a vegetarian alternative (without meat or fish).

"We will always have one vegetarian meal per week, and over time, in 2022, we will introduce a second one during the week, which will be stabilized in 2022-2023, it was a commitment of our program", explains Delphine Jamet, deputy mayor in charge of general administration and president of SIVU Bordeaux-Mérignac, the central canteen.

Today SIVU, which serves 23,000 meals a day, offers more than 30% organic and 35% local products.

A plus for children's health

"It is essential for the health of our children to eat less meat, there are the problems of diabetes, overweight, obesity, points out Stéphanie Anfray, president of the FCPE (federation of parents' councils ) in Gironde.

We need a vegetalization of the diet and more legumes, it is not the FCPE that says it is the recommendations of the national health nutrition plan.

"

Ahead of the arguments of its detractors, and after the controversy born in Lyon, the city emphasizes, beyond the benefits from an environmental point of view, the quality of these vegetarian recipes, being developed in the central kitchen of the city. .

"We must demystify all that and stop opposing things: we can have a very good nutritional intake with a vegetarian meal," said Delphine Jamet.

And to listen to it, this vegetarian turn is also an opportunity to improve the composition of the plates.

Once the receipts have been established, contracts could be awarded over the next few years to groups of local farmers, established in the region and in neighboring departments.

The president of the FCPE also believes that by buying less meat, the community gives itself the opportunity to offer better quality, from local farms.

“We don't want agribusiness products on our children's plates,” she sums up.

In the short term, the reduction of meat in collective catering meals will not lower the city's budget.

It may achieve savings, but in the medium or long term, when "a structuring of the offer" has taken place, specifies Delphine Jamet.

The FCPE considers that it is satisfactory to offer two vegetarian dishes during the week, on condition that the children are given the choice on other days between vegetable and animal proteins.

"Our children are more and more sensitive to this diet," points out the president of the FCPE Gironde.

In high schools, our fight is to explain that some students do not eat in the canteen because they no longer consume meat and these teenagers are not undernourished, of course ”.

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  • Aquitaine

  • Canteen

  • Vegetarianism

  • Meat