[Asia Economy Reporter Park Hyesook] Incheon City is promoting a free meal support project for 360,000 students at 949 schools this year.
Unlike last year, when school openings were postponed several times due to COVID-19 and school meals were not conducted normally, kindergartens, elementary, middle, and high schools reopened on the 2nd, so school meals are expected to operate normally according to the academic schedule.
Accordingly, the city will provide free meals for all grades in kindergartens, elementary, middle, high schools, and special schools in the region.
The required budget of 213.1 billion KRW will be borne by Incheon City 35% (74.6 billion KRW), the Office of Education 42% (89.5 billion KRW), and military/district offices 23% (49.0 billion KRW). From this year, Incheon City and the Office of Education have unified the budget sharing rates for free meals, which were previously different for kindergartens, elementary, middle, high schools, and special schools.
Also, the budget for eco-friendly excellent agricultural products, which had been allocated only to schools that applied, will be expanded to all schools in the region this year.
The eco-friendly excellent agricultural product differential budget, which compensates for the price difference when using eco-friendly ingredients compared to general ingredients, is included in the free meal budget (food expenses) and will be operated accordingly. The supported items will also be expanded from the existing three items (rice, eggs, Korean beef) to all eco-friendly certified items.
As of March this year, checking the bidding status of meal ingredients at each school showed that the purchase volume of eco-friendly rice increased by about 20% compared to the previous year, and the use of eco-friendly ingredients is expected to continue increasing due to the rise in food cost unit prices.
The city plans to consider supporting agricultural product packages or educational disaster relief funds if there is a surplus in the meal budget due to shortened in-person classes caused by the spread of COVID-19.
An official from Incheon City stated, "Incheon is the first in the nation to realize free meals from daycare centers to high schools," adding, "We are currently promoting a comprehensive food plan and a public meal integrated support center project, and we will ensure that Incheon City's meal system can take a step forward as soon as possible."
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