| Yoghurt and cheese are to be made available to schools under the EU School Milk Scheme |
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11/07/2008 The European Commission today announced that the scheme, which was set up about 30 years ago to subsidise the distribution of milk to schools, will now be updated to include a wider range of dairy products and will also be extended to secondary schools.
The EU subsidy will now cover a wider range of dairy products: 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. Member States will be able to choose the products they want to distribute from the list of eligible products. With the new regulation, secondary schools will have the same access to the scheme as nursery schools, other pre-school establishments and primary schools. Secondary schools were in the past often not participating in the School Milk Scheme as it was not obligatory for the Member States to include them. The new version of the scheme will come into effect from August. It is expected that more Irish schools will take part in the future, and it is hoped that the wider range of available products will encourage Irish children to replace less healthy food and drinks with healthier dairy products. Click here for more information. |