73% of local schools getEU milk deals

Education Minister John O’Dowd revealed the level of participation in the EU School Milk Scheme in response to an Assembly Question.

There are more eligible schools (245) in this area than anywhere else in Northern Ireland but just 178 take up the offer of EU grants for mile products - 27 per cent of WELB schools do not participate.

The biggest uptake is amongst special schools (seven out of seven) and nursery schools (11 out of 12) for which the scheme was originally intended.

One hundred and sixty of 182 eligible primary schools take up the offer. But although 44 post-primary schools are now eligible none of them avail of the offer.

According to the European Commission a number of new, innovative and attractive products recently became eligible for the EU-subsidy.

“Further to various types of drinking milk, children have access, among others, to certain fermented milk products with fruit or fruit juice, plain fermented milk products, such as yoghurt, buttermilk, kephir etc., and a wide range of cheeses. “The EU-subsidy, moreover, is the same for full-fat, medium-fat or low-fat products. Member States have the possibility to choose the products they wish to distribute from the list of eligible products and they also have the possibility to apply stricter standards than those set out in the Community list,” the EC states.