CABINET HAS approved the award of two contracts totalling $40 million for the state-funded school feeding programme, which benefits 456,000 students in early childhood, primary and secondary schools.
Burchell Whiteman, Minister of Information, made the announcement Monday at the weekly post-Cabinet press briefing at Jamaica House.
He said the Spanish Town-based Beta Milk Co. Ltd. has been contracted to provided skimmed milk powder at a cost of $18.18 million for use in the nutribun and milk/drink component of the programme.
The minister explained that, under the programme, commodities such as skimmed milk powder and flour are purchased by the government and supplied to Nutrition Products Ltd. The company is responsible for the production and distribution of nutribun and milk/drink snacks to 195,000 beneficiaries across the island.
Distributor, T.Geddes Grant Ltd., has been contracted to provide commodities totalling $22.117 million for use in the traditional school-feeding programme for the current term. Under the traditional programme, 261,000 students are provided with a cooked meal each day.
The commodities to be provided by the distributor include rice, flour, tinned mackerel, corned beef and vegetable oil.
These, along with other items purchased from a feeding grant which is sent to schools each term, enable them to provide a cooked meal which Mr. Whiteman noted was integral to the learning process.
