School Cafeterias Facing Covid19 in the Back-to-School Season

School cafeterias during the covid19 pandemic are one of the biggest concerns for parents and teaching staff for the 2020 back-to-school season scheduled for next September. The main question from parents is whether it is safe for children to eat at schools or if it is preferable for them to eat at home.

Each autonomous community has the authority to establish different safety measures and can adapt them to changes in the situation. However, all agree on establishing a series of hygiene and prevention guidelines and protocols that must be mandatorily followed to ensure contagion prevention. These measures will be carried out regardless of whether the centers have their own kitchens or whether the service is outsourced. In that case, those companies will be required to comply with food safety standards.

School cafeterias against covid19 | Organizational guidelines

School cafeterias strengthen security against covid19 despite there being no scientific evidence that the virus can be transmitted through food. However, when we talk about prevention of contagion and spread of the disease, no measure is unimportant. Especially when we are talking about the safety of thousands of children, who in addition to becoming infected, can become vectors of contagion for other groups.

Let us remember, to begin with, that each center has different facilities, so it is difficult to establish the same rules or solutions for all, since there are cases in which rotation will be essential and others in which it will not. Starting from this basis, we find the following guidelines:

• Establish more cafeteria shifts to control capacity and do so in a way that the students who coincide are from the same groups.
• Additional spaces will need to be left between students who do not belong to the same groups.
• To guarantee the established maximum capacity, other spaces can be enabled for the cafeteria.
• All tables and chairs will need to be disinfected between each shift.
• Students must disinfect their hands before and after accessing the cafeterias.

School cafeterias against covid19 | Prevention guidelines

In some autonomous communities, school cafeterias establish additional guidelines against covid19. This is the case, for example, in Catalonia. They establish these extra measures as mandatory:

• Food must always be served on individual plates. Salad bowls and shared serving dishes are completely prohibited.
• Common-use items such as oil dispensers cannot be used or placed on tables.
• Water can be provided in a pitcher, but only one person should serve it throughout the entire lunch.
• In centers where students clear tables or clean, it must always be done by a person from the same stable group.
• In centers with self-service, students must maintain social distance in the line at all times.
• If other spaces are enabled for use as cafeterias, they must be cleaned, disinfected, and ventilated after each use.

Safety measures in school cafeteria kitchens

Educational centers that also have their own kitchen facilities must implement a series of food safety measures in those areas.

Although some of these measures are already familiar to us, as they have been applied in our daily lives since the coronavirus pandemic began, we will review them, since as we mentioned earlier, any rule that can prevent contagion is important, and it is necessary to always keep it in mind.

• Mandatory use of masks and gloves by all workers.
• Maintain social distance whenever possible.
• Two people will not use the same utensils without having previously disinfected them.
• It is more than advisable to take workers’ body temperature before their work shift begins.

In case of any doubt regarding procedures, autonomous communities have established guidelines and action protocols on food safety matters. These can be consulted online, for example through the Department of Health and Families of the Andalusian Regional Government.

School cafeterias and digital solutions against coronavirus

One of the requests from many educational centers for their school cafeterias is digital solutions, which avoid contact and facilitate shift management. In this area we find mobile applications for capacity control in cafeterias such as the one offered by the Malaga-based brand Reservar Zona Comun.

With this app, different time shifts can be managed and established, in addition to controlling capacity in real time. All of this in a fast, simple, and effective way.

Additionally, the application offers a free trial version for one week.