It takes a village to raise a child. What happens when a village makes the choice to help feed its children? What are the steps to ensure good local food on plates and in bellies? How can local authorities take action beyond national or EU policies? We visited the school canteen in Plessé, France, to find out. Louise Kelleher reports.
Plessé’s school canteen revolution started with a simple goal: “We wanted to have control over what we put on our kids’ plates,” says Valérie Hugron, local councillor for children and youth in this rural municipality in Northwest France.
Rather than outsourcing to a catering company the important task of feeding its children, the municipality decided to take on direct management of the school canteen.
From this decision in 2021 to the first meal served by the new management in 2023, it was a steep learning curve. Today the canteen plates up 450 meals a day, serving fresh, unprocessed, seasonal, local food to the pupils of a total of four schools (preschool and primary level).
Appetite for change
The municipality of Plessé, home of the PAAC, is rich in many things – democratic spirit and civic engagement, biodiversity, farming traditions, culture and the arts, delicious food. But financially, some families struggle. For the local council, food poverty was very much on the menu. “For some it’s the only nutritious meal of the day,” says Valérie.
Hence the commitment to provide better quality food for schoolchildren, but at no extra cost to families. Parents pay the same per meal as before – around €4. The real cost is about €10, and the difference is paid by the municipality, Valérie explains matter-of-factly. For Plessé, it’s a political choice.
This is the key ingredient: political will. And like all the ingredients for this canteen, it’s sourced locally and creatively.
Redefining canteen eating
The story starts during the municipal election campaign in 2020. Valérie ran on a citizens’ list that knocked on doors to ask people: what would you do if you were elected? The proposals gathered were workshopped and refined. What remained was the political programme that became a local food and agricultural policy (PAAC) – Plessé’s answer to the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy.
It revealed a strong political will to invest in the next generation.
The newly elected council had a clear mandate from voters: to guarantee the high nutritional value of school meals. In 2021, this political will crystallised in the decision to take over management of the canteen from the catering provider. And in the spirit of the PAAC, the municipality set an ambitious challenge: to “redefine canteen eating”.
For example, all public canteens in France are required to serve a certain percentage of organic produce, under the Egalim law. This requirement however tends to benefit big suppliers that are equipped to fulfill public procurement contracts. In Plessé the choice was made to support local farmers – and to invest in the extra staff and equipment needed to support local supply chains.
The handover process was overseen by the committee for agriculture, food, environment and biodiversity, chaired by Rémi Beslé. Formed of local councillors, farmers, school principals, parents, and VIPs — Volunteers Invested in Plessé — the committee was supported by food transition specialists from the nourishing cuisine movement (MCN), and local organic farmers via GAB 44.
One crucial step in the planning process was a workshop day to answer the question “what is food for us?” This helped to determine the political goals but also the reality of what was possible in terms of staff, buildings and budget.
Cooking up change
To translate political will into practical action, local councillor Valérie Hugron worked closely with Aurore Guerre, head of the children and youth department, on the management side. There was a lot to learn about procurement and planning. Such as calculating what quantity of a given vegetable would be needed in a year.
One of the first steps was to hire the right chef. And here we meet the third woman who has played an instrumental role in making this experiment a success: Marion Blot, a local chef who was motivated by the project.
What farm to fork really looks like
It’s an experiment in ultra-local public procurement. Chef Marion gives precedence to farmers in Plessé when sourcing an item. Only if it’s not available from a farm in the municipality will she look further afield. The producer sets the price.
The menu is adapted according to seasonality and availability. Which means Marion can say yes to a farmer with a surplus of carrots, for example. Vegetables come in mucky, fresh from the field, and the kitchen can process whole chickens, thanks to investments in the necessary equipment and staff. For example, €20,000 was invested in a new oven to accommodate fresh, unprocessed produce.
Marion works 6am to 2pm (she had gone home for the day by the time of our visit). Administrative tasks take up a sizable portion of her day (2 hours), including menus, orders, bookkeeping and health and safety.
She is supported in the kitchen by a team of part-time workers who help to address the additional workload of processing produce fresh from the field, or whole chickens.
Clearing plates
The canteen’s vocation is more than to serve meals; it’s about nourishing little humans. Which means a proactive approach to food waste. Here, the schoolchildren don’t leave their lunch behind. From the outset, the new management asked questions to understand why food was left behind, using the five senses as a starting point. “What did you smell/taste/see/touch/hear that put you off?” Hearing is an interesting sense to invoke – for instance, it could be your dining companion saying “yuck”.
So as well as catering to local supply chains, Chef Marion very much caters to the children’s tastes. Generally cauliflower is not a popular choice, for example – unless it’s in a soup. For cauliflower soup, the children go back for seconds, and even thirds.
Canteen staff weigh the food waste twice a year. There has been a marked reduction in the amount of food left on plates, although Aurore notes that there is still progress to be made.
Another idea in the works to reduce waste is to allow the children to help themselves to the starter, rather than handing them a standard portion.
“I love seeing the empty plates,” says Aurore. The children go home saying: “Guess what I ate at lunch today?”
Bit by bit, positive feedback from the children has helped to convince those who were reluctant to accept the change in management. If a child is experiencing any difficulties at lunchtime (food-related or behavioural), the family is invited to visit the canteen, where they can eat, if they wish, and talk to the staff. This helps the parents to understand where the difficulties lie and to figure out with the staff how to support the child.
“When I talk to the parents, some tell me their children prefer the canteen food to food at home,” laughs Aurore. Time-poor working parents are glad that their children can avail of good food made from fresh produce in the school canteen.
Conclusion
The canteen has now been operating under direct management since July 2023. We ask Valérie and Aurore how they would evaluate the experiment. “Honestly it’s all great,” says Valérie. “It’s a total victory,” adds Aurore. “They really enjoy the food.”
Plessé’s local council has just been re-elected for another six-year term. Its priorities for the canteen are clear: healthy children, and supported local families and farmers.
There are plans to develop the potential of the canteen as a learning space. A map of suppliers will be displayed to teach the children about local supply chains.
Around the table is where the adults of tomorrow can form healthy eating habits for the future. And in Plessé, the future is local.
ARC2020 visited Plessé’s school canteen as part of a field trip during the Rural Resilience gathering in November 2025.
In part 2, we link local political action to European possibilities, exploring the transformative potential of public procurement at EU level.
ARC2020 is a member of the coalition behind the Good Food For All! European Citizens’ Initiative. Click here to find out more about this initiative, and add your signature if you agree with the demands.
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