To ask the Minister of Education to detail (i) the standard of transport boxes procured for school meals; (ii) whether the transport boxes are solely insulated boxes or the type that can be powered to reheat; (iii) the number of each type of box, used to transport school meals across Northern Ireland, broken down by central production kitchens.

The Food Standards Agency (FSA) does not stipulate the specifications of a box used to transport food. The FSA states the appropriate temperatures that different food type should be at when its holding state. All food products supplied by the Education Authority (EA), either chilled, ambient or hot, are transported in insulated sealed boxes which are specially designed for the transport of meals from production centres. The EA uses both insulated and digital reheat boxes for the delivery of transported meals.

All transport boxes use by the EA are of the highest specification available with one-piece seamless, double walled, high density polyethylene construction. All boxes have a sealable lid to ensure temperature control is maintained. The boxes keep products at the required holding temperature for four hours.

The EA has 579 production kitchens delivering meals to 494 dining centres across Northern Ireland. The number of boxes used each day is dependent on the menu. The EA estimates that it has 12 transporting boxes per dining centre and therefore up to a total of 5,928 boxes are in use within the EA at present.