3. Visit to the ‘FRENSA’ in Tübingen
In the cafeteria of the Französische Schule Tübingen ( Gemeinschaftsschule), voluntary cooking parents work together with full-time employees to prepare healthy and sustainable meals for pupils in grades 1-6. In addition, the pupils in the class 6 also help with serving the meals.
The school canteen, also known as FRENSA, serves meat and/or fish only once a week. On the remaining days, only vegetarian dishes are on the menu, accompanied by vegetables or salad and either fruit or a dessert. On average, 280 meals are served daily. As part of the school, all pupils eat lunch together in the school canteen, which makes it possible to calculate the exact amount of required ingredients.
The pupils sit in rows at tables in the canteen, grouped by class levels. A special feature of FRENSA is the self-service system: the children serve themselves from food containers placed in the middle of the tables. This system helps to minimize leftovers, as the children can choose their own portion sizes. In addition, the children help to set the tables with plates, glasses and cutlery and thus take responsibility.
As part of the project "Educational Cooking", two sixth graders support the school canteen for four days at a time. This gives them valuable insights into the work and the various tasks in the canteen.
The school canteen attaches great importance to the use of high-quality meat as well as local and seasonal products. To avoid food waste, the canteen takes part in food sharing. Leftover food from the plates is passed on to ReFood biogas systems.
The video on the website of FRENSA also offers a great insight into the everyday life of the canteen.
We are very happy about the high level of participation in our project and hope that the high number of participants will contribute to a representative result after the evaluation.