What have we already done to promote school meals?
Vantaa has been developing school lunches already since 2019. The MUMS project helps us further promote school lunches during the course of 2025.
In 2023, Vantaa developed school lunches as follows
- Two hundred seventy-four thousand euros were spent on the environmental liability and quality of school lunches. Recipes were refined and new environmentally friendly fish and vegetarian dishes were added on the menus.
- The city council granted a €160 000 appropriation to be spent on favorite-dish days. The sum was also spent on adding sauces (for example, soy sauce), salad cheeses, and desserts.
- The city executive board granted a one-off €240 000 appropriation that the schools and educational institutions were free to use as they chose to improve the coziness of their own canteens. Schoolchildren and students participated in the planning process. The schools acquired, among other things, green plants, green walls, folding screens, decorations for the different seasons, art, as well as curtains and tablecloths. Moreover, the acoustics and lighting of the canteens were improved.
In 2024, Vantaa developed school lunches as follows
- Providing environmentally friendly fish and vegetarian dishes was continued, thanks to a permanent additional appropriation.
- Likewise, carrying out favorite-dish days was continued with the help of the permanent additional appropriation.
How can schoolchildren and students impact school lunches?
Vantaa schools have meal groups that participate in developing school lunches. A food group consists of understanding, unprejudiced, and brave students that understand the meaning of healthy meals and tasty school lunches, as well as a suitable combination of the school or educational institution’s adults. Moreover, the provider of the meal services—that is, Vantti or Palmia—also participate in the group’s meetings, at least twice a year. The children and the young in the meal group get to influence the menu and recipes, the decor of the school canteen. Furthermore, they also act as opinion influencers.
Schools also arrange recipe workshops where 7th – 8th-graders have the possibility of editing Vantti and Palmia's recipes, as well as of arranging taste panels.
Vantti and Palmia annually ask the students to name their favorite dishes.
