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- On the verge of collapse: regions will receive general recommendations on school meals
On the verge of collapse: regions will receive general recommendations on school meals
Investigators in the Saratov region have opened a criminal case due to poor-quality food provided to schoolchildren in Balashov. This was preceded by a scandal at school No. 9, where the director was fired after he refused to feed the children with substandard products supplied to the institution. Meanwhile, the problems Balashov faced are not unique — similar situations occur all over Russia. A new law on social nutrition may help, but while it is being developed, experts are pinning their hopes on methodological recommendations that, according to Izvestia, the Ministry of Education has sent to the regions.
Why was the director fired for power failure?
Serious problems with school meals in Balashov became known in mid-January. Immediately after the children left the holidays, the director of school No. 9, Andrei Ryzhkov, was dismissed.
The reason was the disruption of catering for the students, which the district administration accused him of. The director himself then stated in local media that defective products arrived at schools on the night of January 12, and some of the chefs did not come to work because the new food supplier had reduced salaries.
"This has never happened to me before: the cook sits in the morning and says that he has nothing to cook from and no one with whom. If the cook poisons the children, he will also be responsible — if he took rotten meat, rotten vegetables," he said.
As a result, on January 12, there really was no catering for children. The media reports that similar problems have been reported in other schools in Balashov.
The scandal reached the State Duma and its speaker Vyacheslav Volodin. He held an online meeting with the regional leadership and recommended that the regional government "restore order." Volodin said that parents from the Saratov region complain to him about low-quality products in schools. According to him, the standards for the cost of food in the region have not been indexed for six years, he called for them to be doubled for elementary schools.
Volodin also said that the responsibility lies with the regional authorities. Governor Roman Busargin acknowledged the shortcomings at the meeting and subsequently reprimanded the Minister of Education.
Meanwhile, the prosecutor's office started checking and found violations. A submission was made to the regional authorities, and an administrative offense case was initiated against the deputy director of the school under Article 6.6 of the Administrative Code of the Russian Federation (violation of sanitary and epidemiological requirements for catering). The prosecutor's office did not explain to Izvestia why the deputy director of the school became the person involved in the administrative case.
The Prosecutor's Office of the Saratov region also found "violations of sanitary and epidemiological requirements, competitive procedures in determining the price of contracts, the inclusion of excessive and unreasonable requirements for participants, as well as illegal actions by officials to allow a specific commercial organization to participate in the procurement." It is alleged that there was limited competition at the auction, which led to the conclusion of contracts with a single supplier.
The prosecutor's office also sent materials to the investigative authorities to initiate a case under Article 285 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (abuse of official authority). In the end, the Investigative Committee did open a case, but so far under the article on the provision of services that do not meet safety requirements — part 1 of Article 238 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. The SU IC in the Saratov region said in a statement that from January 12 to January 21, in Balashov and Balashovsky district, students "were provided with food services that did not meet the requirements of consumer health safety."
Who fed the children in Balashov
Catering in Balashov's schools, including Secondary School No. 9, was handled by LLC "Your Service Company" from Yeysk (Krasnodar Territory). The company itself was registered in the Saratov Region from September 2022 to July 2025, but then returned to the Krasnodar Territory. The company is very actively involved in government contracts — according to Rusprofile, it was the supplier for 292 purchases totaling 940 million rubles.
This company is also well known in Yeysk district. According to Alexander Baturinets, a deputy of the Yeisk district Council, "Your service company" feeds all 25 local schools. Moreover, he also has complaints about how the organization received the contracts.
— The Department of Education disrupted the bidding for 44-FZ — the documents were not prepared in a timely manner. As a result, the head of the district, by his decision, gave the command to conclude a direct contract with the VSK for a short period of time. And then they held auctions, but at that time the school year had already begun a long time ago, and no one else came to the auction except for "Your service Company," he told Izvestia.
According to Alexander Baturinets, the parents of the Yeisk district also have many complaints about the work of this company.
In winter, the company became the only participant and winner of the bidding announced by the Balashovsky district administration for the organization of free meals in 16 schools. The total value of the contracts amounted to more than 46 million rubles.
Since January 1, free meals for schoolchildren have been introduced in rural settlements and 15 cities with a population of up to 100,000 people in the Saratov region, which was the reason for the new competition.
The Ministry of Education of the Saratov Region told Izvestia that control and supervisory measures are currently being carried out in the Balashovsky district. The organization of hot meals for students is "carried out in a regular mode." The Ministry did not answer the question of who is currently organizing the feeding of children.
Who is to blame for the power failure
Evgeny Lando, General Director of the Contract Systems law firm, commenting on the situation in Balashov, noted that formally the director is personally responsible for the life and health of children, including food safety.
"But all the key decisions that determine this security are made without his participation and beyond his control,— the source told Izvestia. — The choice of a supplier and all the terms of the contract is the prerogative of the municipal customer, that is, the Department of Education and the district administration. Financing is carried out according to standards that the director does not set. The products are supplied by a company with which the director does not have a direct contract and whose actions he cannot regulate.
In this situation, the director becomes a "hostage to a contract" that he did not draw up. And the possibilities to stop violations in the organization of nutrition are "illusory," said Evgeny Lando. Theoretically, the director can initiate an inspection and even terminate the contract, but he has an insurmountable time and administrative barrier: a lengthy and expensive examination is needed, the procedure for canceling the contract and concluding it with another supplier takes at least one to two months, and all this time the school remains without organized meals.
— Any legally correct action of the director leads to a personal professional disaster. He can neither immediately stop the supply of low—quality food, nor continue them, bearing responsibility for the consequences," the expert notes.
Vladimir Chernigov, President of the Institute of Industrial Nutrition, recalled that back in 2019, the President of the country gave instructions to clarify the powers of the authorities to provide nutrition to students in schools. The second part of this instruction concerned the introduction of free feeding for students in grades 1-4, and it was completed, but the first one remained open.
— The legislation does not define what is included in the catering, which is the responsibility of the school principal. The reason why the head of the school in Balashov was fired is that the procedure for how he should behave in this situation has not been regulated in any way. Although it has been more than five years since the assignment," the expert said.
Valery Alekseev, head of the Bureau of Investigation of the Popular Front, stressed that the founders of the municipality and regional authorities should be included in the process of controlling nutrition in schools.
— The hotlines of the Popular Front and the Ministry of Education regularly receive complaints about cold food, violations of technology, improper organization of the process and other problems. Therefore, it is important to focus on how the catering process itself is structured," he told Izvestia.
Tatyana Butskaya, first deputy chairman of the State Duma Committee on Family Protection, Fatherhood, Motherhood and Childhood, also notes that the director should have legislative tools to prevent such situations.
"But we need to build a roadmap for feeding children properly, starting with the food supplier," she told Izvestia. — One of the good options that is used in a number of large cities is the appearance of large food processing plants that organize a single purchase and carefully check each batch of products.
How is the cost of meals in schools formed?
Vladimir Chernigov separately drew attention to Vyacheslav Volodin's words about the standard of financing, which needs to be doubled. He noted that now, in fact, there is no tariff that needs to be used to assess the financing of this issue.
Tatiana Butskaya notes that huge amounts of money are allocated annually for meals in schools, but what exactly the money goes for is, in fact, not spelled out anywhere.
— When they allocate 100 rubles for a child, does this mean that 100 rubles will be on the child's plate, or does this 100 rubles also include the cook's salary, the cost of detergents, etc.? Therefore, it turns out that in one region children eat more, and in another — less, — complained Her.
Valery Alekseev notes that there are methods for calculating the cost of food, but they are not universal and often do not reflect the real situation.
— The calculation of benefits and regulatory amounts is carried out according to one methodology, the calculation of specific contracts is carried out according to another, and the actual execution is carried out according to the third. At the same time, approaches may differ between regions and levels of government," he said. — But it is important to understand that the problem is not so much in the calculation of estimates as in the use of funds. At the same cost of the "plate", children will eat one dish, and the other will immediately go to the trash, which we have repeatedly witnessed.
According to Tatiana Butskaya, the law on social nutrition, which is currently being developed, will include calculations of nutrition standards. And Vladimir Chernigov explained that the law will have a calculation method, which should actually become a food tariff.
— It will lay down the basic principles of calculating prices, taking into account regional differences: the real cost of a grocery basket for the previous year in a particular region of the Russian Federation, minimum or industry wages, electricity tariffs and other things. A reasonable open cost of the service will be added to the cost of the products," the source told Izvestia.
However, the adoption of the law is still far away. So far, Vladimir Chernigov said, on January 26, the Ministry of Education issued methodological recommendations for regional education authorities on how to comply with the requirements of regulatory legal acts when providing and organizing meals (the document is available to Izvestia).
— We participated in the development of these recommendations. Without waiting for a new law, we provide explanations on how to exercise our powers to local authorities and schools in accordance with the laws on education, on the quality of food safety and others," the expert said. — And the gaping voids in this area should be filled later by a future law.
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