A MAJOR investment has been made to improve school kitchens in Carmarthenshire.
£600,000 has been set aside to upgrade facilities, with the majority of work already completed.
Works have included re-painting kitchen walls and ceilings, replacing shelves and counters, and re-tiling.
New floors have also been laid and new windows installed in a small number of schools, along with new dishwashers and ovens.
The improvements form part of on-going maintenance work in school kitchens to ensure they are consistently up to standard.
In total, 75 primary and secondary schools have, or will be seeing, an investment in their kitchens during 2010/11.
Sandra Weigel, catering services manager, said: “We are constantly monitoring all of our school kitchens to ensure they are up to standard and fit for our staff to prepare school meals.
“We hold regular inspections, and in those kitchens where we identified the need for improvement, we have acted quickly to ensure that any minor issues did not become a problem.”
School catering staff across Carmarthenshire prepare around 18,000 meals every day, and also provide catering services for several day centres and Meals on Wheels services.
Cllr Gwynne Wooldridge, executive board member for education and children’s services, said: “Having a clean and safe environment in which to prepare school meals is absolutely essential, which is why our staff, along with colleagues in Environmental Health, regularly carry out stringent inspections to make sure that every kitchen meets the standards which we expect.
“This huge investment proves that we are committed to providing the very best kitchen environments.”