Chefs Association of Ghana (CAG) has called on the government to adopt a national policy guideline for the recruitment of caterers for the school feeding programme.
That, it explained, would avoid the preparation of food under unhygienic conditions and complaints of poor quality of food served the pupils.
This was contained in a statement issued in Accra yesterday and signed by the president, Isaac Sackey.
It said there were recent reports indicating that some school feeding caterers prepared food without due regards to sanitary conditions, explaining that would be a thing of the past if a national policy was in place to guide their activities.
The statement also called on the government to invest in technical and vocational course specification for chefs in school to reduce the unemployment among young graduates.
“Currently there is very high demand for professional chefs in the country due to inadequate resource of Technical and Vocational Education,” adding that government should focus on equipping culinary educational institutions to promote skills development towards “reducing unemployment among the labour force.”
It also expressed the need for the country to invest more into the local food and nutrition system to scale up food security amidst the Novel Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) outbreak.
The statement explained that the pandemic had increased food insecurity among a number of countries, and had reversed years of development gains in the agricultural sector.
It noted that COVID-19 impacts had also resulted in severe and widespread increase in global food insecurity, affecting vulnerable households in almost every country and was expected to continue through 2021 to 2022.
It was for these reasons that CAG would on Wednesday October 20, commemorate International Chefs Day on the theme: “Healthy Food for the Future” to raise awareness on the need for drastic measures to combat the effect of COVID-19 on food security.
The event, a joint effort with the Ghana Tourism Federation, would afford participants the opportunity to reflect on global health crisis of COVID-19 and adopt measures to address issues related to chefs education, food nutrition and wellbeing of children.
It said the day set aside by the United Nations (UN) “is known to trigger collective action across nations bringing together chefs, governments, businesses, non-governmental organisations, civil society groups, the media and the public to realise a world free from hunger and malnutrition as well as promoting awareness on healthy and sustainable diet for all.”
The statement also commended the government for instituting Planting for Food and Jobs which it said would enable the country to realise its agricultural potential to ensure food sustainability.
BY JOYCELINE NATALLY CUDJOE
