On July 28th, 2018, Hoa Binh Education & Training Department collaborated with Ajinomoto Vietnam to hold a conference on deploying the “Nutrition-balanced Menu Development Software” to 51 local primary boarding schools.

Dr. Ngu Duy Anh – Head of Physical Education Department, Ministry of Education & Training, was delivering his speech at the conference

Vietnam is still facing a double burden in nutrition: malnourishment in rural children is still prevalent, while overweight and obesity are getting higher and higher in urban adults and children. Improving nutritional condition of children through proper school meals is one of the key contents of the National Strategy in Nutrition and the General Plan in developing physical strength, stature for Vietnamese people in the period of 2011-2030.

However, primary boarding schools still face many difficulties in meals preparation due to the limitation in nutritional knowledge and lack of experience in developing menus. 

Vietnam is still facing a double burden in nutrition: malnourishment in rural children is still prevalent, while overweight and obesity are getting higher and higher in urban adults and children. Improving nutritional condition of children through proper school meals is one of the key contents of the National Strategy in Nutrition and the General Plan in developing physical strength, stature for Vietnamese people in the period of 2011-2030. 

However, primary boarding schools still face many difficulties in meals preparation due to the limitation in nutritional knowledge and lack of experience in developing menus. Understanding and wishing to share these difficulties, Ajinomoto Vietnam researched and initiated the School Meal Project in 2012, in which the “Nutrition-balanced Menu Development Software” is one of the key contents.

The software is an electronic tool assisting schools in developing nutrition-balanced, diverse and delicious menus with 120 available menus and 360 non-repeatable lunch dishes. Having gone through various steps from research, experiment to careful adjustment, the menus were approved by the Appraisal Councils of the National Institute of Nutrition – Ministry of Health and Ministry of Education & Training.

With the software, schools can flexibly develop new menus by combining available dishes or using local ingredients while still ensuring nutritional balance. The software also helps schools to calculate and manage the cost of boarding meals.

Besides, the poster of “3 minutes to change awareness” was also guided to deploy to schools in the conference. With nutritional knowledge illustrated vividly by images, this is a tool to help pupils recognize nutritional values and benefits of foods to health, thereby forming healthy eating habits among them.

Another key content of the Project is the “Model Kitchen”. It is designed and constructed in line with the Japanese standard, assisting schools well in preparing for the boarding work. In May 2018, the second “Model Kitchen” was inaugurated at Hoang van Thu Primary School, Lang Son. 

Till June 2018, the Project has been implemented in 36 provinces and cities and 2,910 primary boarding schools nationwide. With positive feedbacks from schools and parents, Ajinomoto Vietnam is striving to expand the Project to a national scale in the near future.