KUALA LUMPUR: Canteen operators want a seat at the table during cost and menu discussions for the food supplementary programme (FSP).
School Canteen Operators Association president Khairuddin Hamzah said operators should not be caught by surprise over the menus, especially now during times of inflation.
He said if this was not looked into, there was a chance that the menus could be irrelevant.
Khairuddin drew on menus prescribed in 2015 which listed ikan tenggiri (Spanish mackerel) and ikan merah (red snapper) as items.
"Not one of us served them because even then, it was unreasonable to serve fish with our allocation of RM2.50 and RM3 (for Peninsular Malaysia and Sabah and Sarawak, respectively). I really don't know how they came up with this because primary schoolchildren are generally not keen on fish."
He called on the Finance Ministry to loosen its purse strings by setting aside a supplementary budget to let everyone weather the food price inflation.
The Consumer Price Index — which measures inflation — increased by 3.4 per cent in June, exceeding the average inflation in Malaysia for the period January 2011 to June 2022. It was driven by a 6.1 per cent and 6.6 per cent increase on food at home and food away from home.
Khairuddin said the Health Ministry had also been meeting their education counterparts on revamping the menu, to include more vegetables and better cuts of chicken.
Some of the items on the previous menu would be scrapped for more nutritious items, he added.
He, however, said the way forward now was for 'dynamic menus' in schools which would strike a balance between the children's nutritional needs and cost.
He said all canteen operators should be allowed "a seat at the table" during these discussions alongside Parent-Teacher Association representatives to iron out these issues.
"We also want to meet the district health and education offices before they make a decision on what we should supply.
"Our menu suggestion then needs to be taken to their state departments. This is crucial so the menu doesn't become irrelevant like the ikan tenggiri and ikan merah."
Khairuddin said he was glad that Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin had said that the RM2.50 and RM3 allocation was insufficient and should be raised to RM4 and RM5.
He, however, said that even at the suggested hike, a sizeable number of operators would suffer.
"This might be okay for urban schools where supplies can be bought nearby or those with sufficient students from other economic backgrounds for them to sell other items as well.
"But if the school has 200 students and 100 per cent of them are in the Bottom 40 group under the programme, if they somehow manage to make 20 sen per student under a RM4 stipend, they would make RM40.
"How do we pay workers, utilities and so on with this sum? If it is a rural school we also have to foot the transport of goods. Then we also have to deal with this new menu. The assumption is, vegetables are cheaper than chicken and eggs, which is not the case because the price for bayam (spinach) had risen to RM9 per kg from RM3 this year.
"We do not have economics of scale because we are not big players. We are small-time food operators and cannot buy in bulk and risk raw goods getting spoilt. All items such as vegetables and meat can only be purchased one day before cooking them."
Khairuddin had earlier said since the pandemic, a third of the 10,000 canteen operators had quit, and if the per meal allocation was not sufficiently raised, another 1,000 would have to close shop by year end.
Last week, the New Straits Times front-paged reports on parents, teachers and experts pointing out that the supplementary food programme budget was insufficient considering the prevailing inflation.
Close to a third or (74 per cent) of the 445 respondents polled by the NST on Instagram found the RM2.50 and RM3 allocation for the schoolchildren's meals as insufficient. Eighteen per cent said it was sufficient, while 16 per cent replied that it could be sufficient. The poll ran for a day.
You can also register your response in the concurrent Twitter poll on the subject at: https://twitter.com/NST_Online/status/1550363222582398976.
The poll ends on Thursday.
