On December 1st, the Sponsorship Agreement signing ceremony of Japanese Government for the construction of a model kitchen at Hoang Van Thu Primary School in Lang Son province took place in Hanoi - this sponsorship is under the framework of the School Meal Project.

At the ceremony, Ambassador Kunio Umeda signed the Aid Contract to grant 74,294 USD (about 1. 7 billion VND) from the Grant Aid Program of Japanese Government for Hoang Van Thu Primary School (Lang Son province). In addition, Ajinomoto Vietnam and Lang Son People's Committee also contributed to the project, raising the grant to nearly 2.3 billion VND.

The ceremony took place under the chairing of His Excellency Kunio Umeda - Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Japan to Viet Nam and attendance of Mr. Keiji Kaneko - General Director of Ajinomoto Vietnam together with representatives of the Ministry of Education and Training, Lang Son Department of Education and Training.

The School Meal Project initiated by Ajinomoto Vietnam and implemented nationwide in co-operation with the Ministry of Education and Training, the National Institute of Nutrition – Ministry of Health is a project of national scale that aims to contribute to the implementation of the National Strategy in Nutrition and the General Plan in developing physical fitness and stature of the Vietnamese in the period of 2011-2030 approved by the Government. The project is to provide delicious, diverse and nutrition-balanced meals for primary boarding pupils.

In which, the procedure of organizing boarding meals is one of the important contents of the School Meal Project, supports the cooking process and ensures food safety and hygiene for dishes.
The model kitchen sponsored by the Japanese Government through the Japanese Embassy in Vietnam will be built according to the standards of the one-way kitchen from the receiving and processing of input materials to the cooking stage and finished products are complete rations. The stages are separately designed, helping the whole cooking procedure be strictly controlled and tightly in line with food hygiene and safety requirements, as well as prevent sources of infection from other functional areas at most. At the same time, the areas in the kitchen are properly arranged to make the most use of space and reduce the work for cooking staff. Particularly, the new kitchen will be equipped with modern facilities in order to combine with the one-way model to optimize the kitchen’s productivity.