Hanoi currently has more than 3,550 school-based collective kitchens, serving hundreds of thousands of boarding students every day. However, in the first 6 months of 2025 alone, 68 collective kitchens violated food inspection procedures and hygiene conditions, of which 20% of kitchen staff did not strictly comply with regulations on personal hygiene, more than 70% of street food outlets around the school could not trace the origin of the food. These numbers are enough to make any parent startled.
Meanwhile, the Hanoi People's Council has approved a Resolution spending more than VND3,000 billion to support boarding meals for primary school students in the 2025-2026 school year. A welcome decision, demonstrating the city's strong concern for students' health. The problem is the need to strengthen the monitoring mechanism and select reputable suppliers.
Food safety is never a problem. Weaknesses such as un qualified processing human resources, small kitchens that are difficult to manage, incomplete invoices and documents, or lack of post-inspection sanctions are "deadly loopholes" that need to be handled immediately. More worryingly, many parents still prioritize cheap foods over safety, making the situation more difficult to control.
This is something that parents want to rectify right from the beginning of the school year.
Parents hope that the school's board of directors should proactively sign commitments, make the inspection process transparent, and closely monitor sample storage and raw material invoices. Ward and commune authorities must take action to strictly handle unlicensed kitchens, and handle street vendors with potential risks of poisoning in front of school gates.
In addition, the media also needs to go deep into target groups: Enterprises, students, parents and the community, with easy-to-reach forms such as extracurricular activities, clips, illustrative leaflets, etc.
It is known that the Hanoi Department of Health will focus on implementing a number of groups of solutions in the coming time. In which, digital technology is applied, it is mandatory for units to have QR codes to trace the origin, deploy large-scale collective kitchen surveillance cameras. In particular, in addition to controlling the collective kitchen well, it is necessary to assign responsibility to the People's Committees of communes and wards in resolutely handling street vendors around the school gate, ensuring the safety of students' health.
A clean meal not only raises a child, but also builds a healthy generation. On the eve of the new school year, don't let school lunches be a constant worry for students and their families. Let's start with seriousness right from the preparation stage today.
