Next year, HUF 56 billion more will be spent on public meals than in 2010: the government will spend HUF 87 billion on free and discounted meals for children in 2022, announced Sölch Gellért, the Deputy State Secretary responsible for strategic affairs of the Ministry of Human Resources, on Saturday in Felcsút.

Sölch Gellért emphasized at the award ceremony of the 10th OKÉS National Catering and Chef Competition: the government created the special dietary rules for catering, so that children with special and dietary needs can be provided with food safely.

The deputy state secretary also spoke about the fact that it is perhaps due to the changes in public catering, the school fruit and vegetable, school milk program, as well as the VAT reduction of basic foodstuffs that, in terms of meat consumption, our country has improved four places compared to the EU average, and is in fourth place, fifth in fish consumption, and in the consumption of dairy products, it is second in the EU.

Sölch Gellért noted that a priority goal is to introduce domestic ingredients to public catering, so next year the proportion of domestic food will be increased to 60 percent, while a year later it will be 80 percent.

István Asztalos, the president of the Hungarian Chefs' Association of Étrend, said that more than twenty teams entered the competition, and seven teams competed in the finals. The contestants had to put together a menu for HUF 450 per portion and were required to use any organic certified ingredients, 20 percent organic sour cream and any Traditions, Flavors, Regions (HÍR) trademarked product during food preparation.

The theme of the competition, organized in the classroom of the Felcsúti Lajos Leteneyy High School, Technical and Vocational Training School, was the sustainable future, so the dishes, plates and cutlery were also made of degradable materials.

According to the children's jury, the winner of the competition was Keszi Konyha (Erika Horváth and Tibornt Reinhardt). According to the decision of the professional jury, the third place in the cooking competition went to the Best-A-Team (János Bestztercán and Attila Aschenbrenner), the Escobar team (Attila Herczku and Norbert Sas) finished second, while the winner was the Hegylakók - Lifestyle Hotel Mátra team (Fodor Szabolcs and András Simon).

MTI

Cover image: MTI Photo: Tibor Illyés