The Reality of School Meals in Ireland Today with Ger Killian

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Find Shrooms Post-manopause now on FabiWalens.com and in pharmacies and health food stores nationwide. You are welcome to the podcast. Obviously to be here, thanks for having me. Thank you. I have been dying to get you on and glad now you finally agreed. I'd love you to talk to me about your business and what you do for a living because it's all around feeding children, school lunches and I think that it will be very interesting to get the information out there to the wider public. Yeah, it's a hot topic right now. Yes. I am the co-founder of the Lunchbag with my partner Ray. Now we deliver, we've been one of the biggest suppliers of school meals in Ireland but previously we started in 2019 when there was no universal school meals game. So around 2006 Ireland introduced funded meals for kids in dash schools, so disadvantaged schools. So there was two main suppliers and they got a called the sandwich, three piece lunch and my partner at the time became one of the suppliers in that area. He was my partner then. So we met in 2019. So he's your romantic partner as well as your business partner? Yeah, okay. That's a whole other podcast. Sure, that's a part of that. That's a lot of times. Hi, yeah, four o'clock in the morning. It's September. But I suppose yeah, he wanted to see if there was a way of getting school lunches to kids in a non-deesh school because if you're in a desk at the time, you could have five different lunches in a week, all different varieties, all different choices. But if you're in a non-deesh school, you can't give your kid that variety without considering like cost or food waste when very bleak parents were buying ham and a loaf on a Saturday and it was working its way through the week and by Thursday or picking blue bits off the edge of his balls. Don't answer. And they look at me making it. Is that blue mold? No, it's not. That is. Yeah. And then parents just say, "The kids are coming home with it again. They're not aging it." So people kind of forget that culture three years ago, the big kind of laugh or joke on social media. The time was comedians. So it was Mark and the fact that they were making lunches and kids were bringing it home again. It was just going for the walk to lunch and school the home again. So we were trying to see, could we tackle that? So I met Ray that time and he told me what he wanted to do. And I was like, "Why, for to be able to achieve that, we needed to tackle the Irish culture that of how school meals were done. My background is social care. It's not business." And I previously worked with Charity's fundraising and how to tell their story. So I started as well researching and locking into all the different issues that parents were facing. From a convenience level, I have been that single mother put your kids to bed and next thing you realize there's nothing there for lunch the next day and you can't leave and go to the shop. So I had that personal experience. And then I suppose from a sustainability point of view, from a cost point of view and having worked in social care, I realized there was a lot of issues that could be solved with this. So we launched lunch bag in my son's skill in May 2019 and we made 187 sandwiches on our first day. They crashed immediately, of course. So the May bank called it was seven or eight on the phone, seven clock in the morning ringing all the parents saying, "What was it actually wanted for lunch?" And we made 187 sandwiches. Different varieties of sandwiches as that is. So that was like, so basically we had like a deli style. So kids could go on the app and order what bread they want, what spread they want, what filling they want, what protein they wanted and then what snacks they wanted. And then we would make it rapidly and sustain a possible packaging and deliver to the schools. So we started just at one school to test it, see what it worked. We got 85% download and we realized, okay, we have something. So we hired gorgeous Mary F. who still with us as our first customer service. We hired Kira's sales rep and tested it and by that Christmas then we had 65 schools, schools really, really bought into the concept of allowing their parents that opportunity to have a school meal come in from an external provider. And that's how we started. Yeah. And we grew very rapidly with that. So it was nearly a shock to the system. How fast it grew and how big the demand was. I knew everything there was to know about sandwiches by the end of 2021. And we bought a facility in Nina and just started kind of growing and growing out of there. And then we took the approach of because we couldn't afford it, I suppose big company employees or experienced people and because we really wanted to create something different. So my whole ethos at the start was if we were going to create a place, a workplace, it was going to be the best place in Ireland. It was going to be the nicest culture you could walk into. So instead of hiring people with experience, we hired graduates. We started a graduate program. Some of them are still with us, but like really bright, bullberry, 22, 23 year olds, highly educated and with no baggage, with no preconceived concept of what a department should be or how we should run or and just really, really built up a gorgeous workplace from that. And with these graduates, the graduates from all areas of our current head of HIT or was a graduate in biochemistry. Okay. They just were in these fantastic minds that just didn't know what they wanted to do after they'd finished college. So we just hernest that and learned with them and taught with them and brainstormed with them and created, I would say, yeah, a fabulous place to work. We actually won Irish Times Best Place work last year. We've kept that kind of culture as we grew. And then we got to 20, 23 and the government decided to roll out University of the hot school meals. Okay. And how did you cope with that? So it was interesting. I'm 100 of our schools. So we had about 400 schools at the time that we were providing this called paid service to. And there was a really interesting psychology in that that we'd learned that now in a free school meals, like it's an amazing psychological, social experiment, like they mounted data. We've picked up and stuff that I'd love to get out there. The habits of kids, the novelty, the idea of when we gave a lunch to a kid at the start, the excitement on that first day, and parents were emailed and saying, this is the best lunch I've ever had. Oh my god, my kid loves it. Fantastic. The kids were so excited and pestering their parents first. Now, even though initially the lunch at the start of the day was produced by business partners and they were in the desk, Scoomiel. And we used the exact same product. This was in the call days, the private days. We used the exact same. When you say private day, so are you explaining what that means? Or us, we call it private was when schools were paying for Scoomiel's. Okay, so schools were paying or parents, parents, okay. Parents, apologies parents. So in the morning, the factory would have produced for dash school kids. And when I went in and surveyed them, they'd say they didn't like it. But the afternoon shift made the exact same meals, lunches for paying children. And they said it was the nicest meal they'd ever had. So there was an interesting kind of dynamic of when kids had to pest their parents first. It was more appetizing. But then as time went on, 60% of kids were not changing their order. And novelty started to wear off. And the kids would start disengaging. And then the parents would email us saying, your quality has changed. Something's dropped, something's changed, you're after changing something. You're like, no, we haven't. And you're seeing it across swaths of schools. But then there was others that it wasn't an issue. When you went in and researched those ones, actually the teacher was really engaged. The principal was really engaged or that parent community were really engaged. So you were getting really interesting data. And when you say engaged, do you mean the teacher or the parent or the principal were talking to the children about the food, talking and positive about it? OK. And lunchtime was a more positive experience, maybe a less stressed school, with less maybe because at that time a lot of Ukrainian children were coming into Ireland. So there was a lot of pressure and a lot of schools. So we saw that data and then when it moved. to a hot school meal, a lot of that data has held, even though people are only aware of it now, and they think it's a new anomaly. It's not. We can actually prove data's initials now. So, 2023, the government announced hot school meals, and a hundred of our schools automatically got funding. So the contact to Dustin said, "We want now a free hot service." Because previously they were getting a free cold service. The parents were paying for a cold service. Okay. And now they were after becoming part of this funded service. And did they have to fulfill any criteria to fund the express interest? But they didn't necessarily have to hot a desk school? No, this was the difference. So, universal school meals. So, as part of the EU child guarantee, by 2030, Ireland had to fulfill three different aspects. So, one was access to earlier education, two was access to GP care at a young age. And the third one to fulfill was nutritional meal for disadvantaged children in school. Now, in Ireland, we had that for the deaf school children, but you're looking at, depending on the school, 20 to 50 percent of disadvantaged kids in a non-dash school. Okay. Because we were real mixed, I suppose, and the government very much moved from councillors' states that were just for maybe social welfare recipients. Now they're ingrained, and you know, there was kind of inclusion. So, they had to introduce a universal school meals model. Actually, sorry, apologies. They didn't have to, but they did and they chose to. Because they were very much influenced, maybe by the Finnish or Swedish model. But it was introduced under an Anglo-type welfare model. So, this kind of concept or their view of it was very much around looking after kids in need, which was fantastic for the short term, or for the long term, I think, they're missing an opportunity for a progressive school meal model. And it's kind of what people are calling out for now. They want the Japanese model, they want the Finnish model. But we've been handed a welfare model of school meals. Do we now discuss the difference between a welfare model and the Japanese and Finnish school model? So, we can explain that to people. When you give school meals, a lot of the conversation now is like for the kids in need. It's making sure those kids are fed. And that is just to emphasize absolutely the most important thing. The issue is that when you introduce that as a welfare model in any countries that has done it as a welfare model around the world, are failing. It's falling. It's collapsing like New Zealand. And the problem is, if you're looking at it and you're like, we're just going to feed the poor kids and the priority is that if you've got a mixed classroom, you're going to introduce and stigma immediately to that classroom. Okay? So, by introducing a universal school meal, every kid in that classroom is entitled to the meal. But we're seeing with trends straight away, you're looking at about 5% parents that want to get. And they'll say, we don't need it. And then you're looking at some then that are going into it and they're like, great to save me a headache. They might like it today. They might like it tomorrow and they're just kind of using it flippantly. And then you've got poor children that really heavily rely on us. But when your child is heavily relying on us in the classroom and they're looking around and their peers are dipping in and out of it or not engaging with it. Now it's creating a kind of a psychological instability in that child and they want to be like their peers. That's more important for them at that point in time. So what the Japanese did is and just to clarify the Japanese started their school meals in the late 1800s. So they very much started maybe with a lot of our model as well, making sure the poor children were fed. And then after the war, America introduced to their school meals in Japan the concept of milk and bread and focusing it around getting calories up. And there was kind of a resurgence in Japan around the 70s, 80s where they decided to kind of reclaim their own culture back and bring in their school meals. So I think it's deeply ingrained in the educational day. So the teacher is sitting with them, they're taught what they're eating, why they're eating. And it isn't an opt-in and an out and you might have a day and you might like it. You sit and you eat your meal. So whereas in Ireland, school lunch is a break from the educational day. So it's not necessarily talked about, they're not educated about, they're not supervised in a lot of instance and they're trying to eat fast to get out and run around and get some energy out of them because teachers are so stretched with so much curriculum they have to meet in a given day. The meal isn't necessarily supported or educated, it's a standalone. And if you're looking at a six-year-old kid who has to eat 120 grams of vegetables relatively unsupervised and a teacher with no guidance as to whether that child, the parent wants that child to finish that whole meal or just taste a bit and open any pressure on them, you're leaving a lot of uncertainty in the classroom. We did independent survey with Amorac research. And nine out of 10 parents across all suppliers and all the schools are sending in lunch with their kids just in case they don't like the oatmeal. So the kids are getting maybe a ham sandwich in a lunch with them and we actually asked parents and invariably it's a ham sandwich. If you're in a funded service at ham sandwiches and allowed every day but when it's sent in from home it is there's no regulation on it. So parents are sending it in 11 o'clock the kids hungry, they're eating their ham sandwich and they're your good or what not. And then at 12 o'clock a hot meal is put in front of them and they're not necessarily hungry. And then people are saying it's not nutritional, it's not waste or look they didn't eat it. And then you have people pulling out of the service and you're creating then whole other meals from there when people are pulling out of the education, so they're out of the service and then you've just got the children, the poor children, the classroom eating it. And even though people talk with this massive budget that's been allocated to school meals it's three euro and 20 cent per child, per child. So that's per meal. Now out of that three euro 20, if a classroom, so if I'm delivering into a classroom and I start off with 100% participation and kids are falling out of it because of what we learned in the private service because the novelty is wearing off because it's not being supported in the classroom because the children are changing their choice. They're not changing their choices, 60% are still now not changing their choices in a given day and they're bringing additional lunch. Now the parent might pull the child out of the service, okay, but I still have to deliver into that classroom. I still have to provide that school. I still have to pay somebody working there. I still have to have the van going there. I still have to have the supplier and standby. So those fluctuations are very difficult to manage out of that three 20. So I don't get, they don't say this is how much for that school and how do you manage it? It's three 20 per kid, but those kids can fluctuate. And any given day, or any given month and dipping in and out towards a difficult time. Do you not get paid for the child that pulls out? You don't get that? Okay, no. And they can pull out with 48 hours notice. Okay, but you still have to provide into that. So now you're looking at less and less budget allocated to that child because the meal actually isn't index linked. So when it's going to start in 2006, you got when you're on 90 for a three-piece core meal, okay? They never increased that budget for 19 years. So they've now allocated three or 20 in 2023, three or 20 cents for a hot meal, but it's not index linked. So it's three or 20 the next year, the next year and next year. And we don't know for how long more that's going to go on and if they're ever going to increase or adjust that, they have told us we'd have to lobby for it. But the environment has changed. So like this year alone in January, all of the enrollment came in minimum wage increased, sick days increased. So that all has to come out of that three 20. Food inflation fuel increases for our vans all has to come out of the three 20. So it's not three 20 to just spend on food. And again, because it's viewed that welfare model of just looking after the poor kids, they're not looking at that opportunity to actually address poverty in the long term. So if you could get University of Scoom-Ears, Finland and Sweden have proved and Sweden were able to prove a 6% increase in generational income. They were able to prove that actually if you've universal meals and all children are coming in equally committing to we're going to eat this. We're going to eat it together, we're going to learn together and support our peers and not see any difference in social status in the classroom. Kids are coming to school then. The law's socio-demographic kids that are struggling feel welcome in school. They feel part of the school. Teachers are seeing behavioral improvements. Kids are camera because they're not bringing in a kind of a high sugar meal from home. You know, the long term benefits are there. But we're introducing something that's a quick fix just for a hungry child today, rather than something that will fix a hungry child today and prevent a long-term poverty, which is frustrating. I can imagine really frustrating and such a simple thing to fix, such a simple thing to fix. And the simple way to fix that will be just to insist that its universal school meals so every child in the classroom has to sit and eat that meal that's provided for them. With education around it though, that's important thing. Yeah, well the other thing and approved suppliers. Yeah, you know, there's what started off is three or four suppliers. There's now 300 suppliers out there, which is fantastic for if locals can deliver it, but they need to be able to deliver it while meeting all the raft of additional legislation around it. What I mean by that is, you know, you need to be able to meet all the FCA requirements, you need to be able to look after all the Department of Social Protection requirements around budgeting, invoicing, proving where you've spent your costs, you have to look after all the Department of Education requirements with regards to building regulations in the school and how you work within them. So there's a whole raft of legislative issues to overcome out of that three or twenty as well. So what Japan do is you have to afford to eat it. And I don't think Irish parents would put up with that either. So actually when you research any Western teachers will report about school meals in Japan, they'll say, actually a lot of the kids in the afternoon will say that they're We're hungry. But no one talks about that. Japan very much put out the model of this is what we do, this is how we do it. And they don't really talk about the Fussy Asians in their classrooms. Japan don't magically have children that just all love broccoli, you know? Yeah. They don't discuss that kind of thing. Whereas in Ireland, actually, we have higher participation rates than Finland and Swedish. We're not talking about that. We were able to roll out a national school meal program in under three years, but we're not highlighting that. As was Ireland ink to show what we've actually done, we've negative social media that's projecting it as a real negative failing, not fit for purpose service. But actually, there's 95% participation rates. We do have a really strong nutritional framework passed down by the government. It just needs to be enforced better on the 300 suppliers. So it's an interesting dynamic and opportunity. But we need to design school meals for Ireland. And we're not. We're looking at history of kind of what we've developed or what we've been given by English rule and looking over at Japanese and how they do it, but not taken into account. How do we need to do it as a country? In Japan, are the meals cooked on site in our school? Very rarely. There is that perception as well. So perceptions are amazing thing. Yeah. The perception is that so we went over to Japan. Yeah. No, they don't. They do the same as we do. So they centralize and then they distribute because you have to be sustainable as well. You have to keep below cost. So if I'm cooking on site in a kitchen-- so first of all, we don't have facilities in Ireland for that. We spent 83 million in three years in port of cabins in this country. Schools don't have space for a classroom. There's not a lot in a kitchen. And we don't have staffing in Ireland. We don't have enough chefs in the country. So what we do is we localize them to one area, invest there. And again, for 320 scale, you have to. We prepare it all in sight. And then we distribute it around to the schools, whereas Japan do the same thing. But the difference in Japan is the Japanese kids portion out for themselves. So they're given kind of boundaries of food. Pinnix, we have a boundary. You know those like canteen trays, you see? Yes, I do. And the kids get into the school classroom or go into-- Like a canteen. Yeah. --children help themselves. They can serve themselves. OK, so they're not given-- and they're not into food that they're supposed to eat. No, but in Ireland, we have to give them-- 50 to 75 grams of protein. We have to give them 120 grams of veg. We have to give them-- You know, we're very-- So explain that, actually. Explain what the guidelines are for what each meal has to contain. Yeah. And then let's work backwards. Tell me how you start your day or how your company starts the day and delivers the school meals. So what we do is-- So they are going to change the guidelines. But the healthy Ireland guidelines up until now is that it is 100 grams of your curbs, 120 grams of veg, and 50 to 75 of protein. They have to be low salt, low sugar, low fat, which kind of forces you then into having to invest more in your protein, which is actually really expensive in this country. And we don't have the supply that we need to meet that demand. So your protein will be your chicken, your chicken, or whatever way you get-- Yeah, exactly your chicken's your protein. So what we do then is when we'd moved from maybe cold meals, we had been making sandwiches. We brought the bread in, and we bought the butter in, and we bought the chicken in. So that's the model we'd set up. So we're like, what are we going to do with hot meals? So what we did was we went to the best in the country that we could find. So we went to Bali, Maloo. And we were like, how do we make the best ball and air sauce in the country? That is low salt, low sugar, high fiber. And the girls there are fantastic rosy and max. And they helped us develop a really good tomato sauce. We went to Tom in Spice Life and Quark. And we were like, how do we make the best gravies, curries? Our gravies are made from the bones. The amount of work that these guys in Don Maloo do on our sauces. And they have teams of nutritionist and food scientists that look at that. And then we went to like so flanagan food and meat, went to Willa Brocken-Bellfast for our veg and fruits. So we got all these local suppliers and worked with them. And then what they do is they would deliver to us. And what we can do is assemble and we can portion correctly. So we can't just buy eye, decide what we're going to put in. You know when you're making like a dinner at home, we can't do that. And we would have a lot of diabetic children that are relying on us as well. So we have to have our portions correct, as well as being as well as governed on it. So the meals are made. And then immediately once the meal is made, it is labeled with that child's name and school. So there is no chance that a child can get an incorrect meal because we have to look after all allergens as well. Are the sauces and everything cooked on site? So because that falls under a different environmental health office regulation, although we don't have. We don't have a building that has broken up into enough small spaces to satisfy the food safety authority. And also for three or a 20 cent, I can't make a high quality sauce if I have to do it from scratch. But if I give it in volume to a specialist, like Balimaloo, or Spicer Life, they can do it for us. Like we wouldn't have been able to afford to set up that at the scale we were at because you have to remember immediately 100 schools wanted our service. Balimaloo put on second shifts in Spicer Life, built on to his factory. Like there was a huge amount of local employment and shift in it. So we take their produce and then we portion it straight away. And then in fairness to my business right and right, he's a fantastic logistics head. So as soon as the meal comes out, it's labeled kid can't get the incorrect meal. And then that's a heart and their death the next day. So we would have 175 vehicles. The guys go out at midnight every night and they deliver to school cold. So the meal comes to us cold. It stays cold. It's delivered cold because food safety is enormously important to us. And it's the safest way to do it. So then what we do is we hire somebody in their locality and we put ovens, regional ovens into the school. And then we train somebody in their locality to come in. And it's been actually fantastic because we're able to hire a load of people that maybe couldn't go back to full time, works to count for childcare or maybe we're getting social welfare. And didn't want to disrupt their hours, they went to work so we hire them, we train them, they can drop their kids to school, they go in, hit the meals, distribute them, and then they go home and they're kind of additionally paid and upskilled. They put the meals into the ovens, they're heated correctly and then they deliver them to the classroom. Correct, the teacher gives them out. The teacher gives them out, but they're all individually labeled. Now the teacher is only allowed under FSCI requirements. The teacher is only allowed to take the box and put on the kids' desk. A teacher can't interact with food. Once the interactive food that become a food business operator and are liable to insurance issues. Oh my gosh. Yeah. So that's why actually we had an issue during the summer with that we had because we, in some of small rural schools, some of these schools on average have 22 students in them, and they're in like West Claire. And if you're getting 320, go into that, sure you can't afford anything. So we actually worked with some of the teaching staff that were willing to volunteer and we were like, train them, they heated the meals and get our kids and all was well, but the new requirements, the commendure and the summer, not only required that the oven be in a room of its own and should these tiny little schools only had nearly one room in the school, the teachers were no longer allowed to interact, heat the meals and give them out. Unless we hired that teacher. And once we hired the teacher, we fall under employment laws of minimum wage and we just couldn't make them, it cost us more money to provide the schools than it did to serve them. So what happened then? Couldn't serve them. So they had to go to smaller local providers that could drop meals hot from their local kind of cafe. OK, so the local provider can drop it hot, drop it hot to the teacher can't interact yet. OK, now there's a challenge there. A huge challenge. Can I imagine? Because if you're a small local provider and you're seeing the cost coming in and now to win a school, you have to compete the tender process and that is pretty stringent. That's a 95 page call for tender. Just to even fill it in, you need to hire somebody, you know? So a lot of local providers are really struggling with that. So what they have to do is take on more and more schools to be able to afford to run the service. But now you are very limited for the time you have to heat a meal and get it delivered hot to that school within that 90 minute window and within that temperature that falls under legal requirements. Of course. And higher the temperature is, housing should the temperature is given to the child correctly. So that's why we would always push for that there should be an oven in the school and an operative hired in the school that can they probe at that point in time. And then we register the school with the environmental health officer who come around and make sure. But with the hot drop models, there isn't no oversight on that. OK. There's no legal requirement. Literally, it's dropped to your school the same as pizza dropped to your house and it's up to you after that. What happens? Now, local providers are fantastic at doing as much as they can but there isn't legislation to really govern it. But contrary to maybe what the social media register could be, I don't presume, Annie Malas, I don't think anyone would be going out there not caring about the temperature that they're dropping or they are definitely under pressure to meet it. Yeah. Can you tell me what type of meals you provide than the options that you provide for children? What's in the products? And then also tell the chicken gouges on story to, because I, oh, so that's how you and I bothered about our chicken gouges on. So we have 16 different options in a day and then six and different options over each day. You get me? So Monday of 16 options Tuesday of different 16. Yeah, yeah, so there's a few that we have to keep stable across the week because we've so many fussy kids in this country DCU did a really interesting study actually in 2025 on food neo-phobism What does that mean a fear of food? You know a fear of anything that has color in it that they want just plain food That is just such a huge issue in this country. Why this country specifically? So I'm gonna go to go to a geeky wormhole here. Yeah, I do go. I love this So you're looking at mid-century Ireland there was literally laws around who could eat what food so beef was not would only be Reserved for a landlord where as you have your peasants who are only allowed your potatoes on buttermilk by this was the famine 75% of the population were living in poverty and they were living off potatoes on buttermilk and a real food aversion came in then when I suppose the introduced Indian maize and people were just suspicious of anything So that we really have an generational phobia of a lot of foods and I suppose Isn't it? It's very sad as well Sorry, don't mean to laugh, but it is that when you said like a phobia of the Indian maize you can see though Yeah, yes, what I'm going to eat here. Yeah, and hand it to you and I suppose what happens is well is that we're 40 50 years behind where England and other European countries are out with immigrants so The Indians that are now come into the country with their spices and their more adventurous palates. We didn't have that in Ireland We were way behind all the European countries who had more of an influx after World War II We didn't have that and on top of that Because of kind of the Lassofair English economy we were set up agriculturally to export So we don't really have a land that's land so when we if there's somebody listening now that's big into history They might give out to me that I'm wrong post This my understanding so the Lassofair economy in England. So when they started moving to an industrial revolution they moved away from agriculture and they started importing cheap food for their workers in factories From their colonies so Ireland was very much the exporter to England of our dairy mainly and beef So it was all exported and then we import most of our food in Ireland We're not set up agriculturally to be subsufficient and then I suppose after that Fam and we were still in poverty for quite a long time But then in the 70s when we moved into the European Union the EC at the time and that common agricultural policy came into play It kind of compounded that concept of exporting and we never really had our own food safety rigidity like you saw Hayes there this week closing down their hair it supplies and stuff because Cause of that kind of European you're buying it in other countries that have more sustainable climates and more better capabilities of providing Variety of food so and they can provide it cheaper. It's very sad that it's cheaper to fly in carrots and to grow them yourself But the reality yeah our minimum wage and those constant increases in that means it's so expensive in Ireland to run a country and there's so much legislation like it's just Sure farmers are filling in paperwork now more than they're out in fields And it doesn't make any sense for anyone to be a small provider It's a battle all the time and like to look at that weather who could do anything with their firms the last three months, you know and unfortunately for a school meal provider We need stability. We can't just tell a school next Monday. You know the way half of the orders Rose carrots well The farmer couldn't get it in time. You know you have to have a stable supply chain and that's a big thing to Challenge and tackle like that's a generational that's a centuries old problem for Ireland It's not something that we can suddenly click our fingers and fix and I know other European countries are very much going for that small or local supplier model But it's something Ireland are going to really really struggle with because of that in heritage issues So we'd have our six different meal options in the day We have a few staples and then so kids can you choose from like two or three different types of rolls two or three different types of Pass the dishes two or three different types of rice dishes and They order them and then they're hot on their desk the next day and what's the most popular? It depends on the day of the week and it depends on the county really yeah Curry's in Dublin pastas in Galways you're looking at roll stitches down straight down the middle of the country Quark will be a little bit more diverse Really interesting and it depends on so much demographic even the allergens are interesting by counties and place Very stuff. So fantastic data out there really really interesting data the chicken gusion story. Yes, go on So 20 24 September 24 weeks. Oh our third hire was actually a dietician The department are actually only getting a dietician this year. It was a mammoth task and fairness to her So we hire Colin and we decided 23 we were clean that when you said the department doing the department of social protection Okay, yeah Interestingly that falls under and exactly that is an issue So because it falls under social protection. It's a welfare model It's not being funded by an education or innovation. Yeah, I assume it was going to be the department of education Oh, okay, so therefore it's just poverty in their head straight away and it's not the potential of what it could be for poverty in the long term I know we went completely in deck and it's saying to you like I knew that it was on the 23rd September We have to reverse because I'd cried for 23 days straight because of the amount of solicitors letters we got letters from children's charities letters from doctors letters from parents saying that by removing chicken Gouges or sausages we'd removed a safe food for their child. Why did you remove it the first place? perception of a small amount of People online and it's just like you're trying to keep yourself motivated. You're trying to mind your own head You're trying to do the right thing and I would have presumed the right thing to do was to be more stringent on what meals went out and whatever and I even comment from a social care background was shocked at The response from the public shocked at the response. See listened to a backlash on social media and went okay We got to get rid of the jinguzans because yeah all these loud people shakened about us But they were actually the The minority yeah and actually the vast majority of people loved it Well, it was just the concept of I just want my child fed. I was really surprised by that the the fear The parents have that their child might be fed in a day and it kind of explains the nine out of ten of them sending additional lunch People just really don't want to see their kids in any way and in fairness correctly So struggle in school. They just you just make sure my kid is fed and minded and I know they leave that like I have three teenage boys You can totally look after themselves. Yeah, but I spent 80% of my day wondering Yeah, what I'm gonna feed them. Yeah, and also like I do people probably kill me for their sins I do get off the morning and I get great pleasure in in making their lunch and send them at school No, and they're gonna eat well and my husband thinks I'm daft. Yeah, why do you bother there? It's a security fear yeah, yeah I think it is and it's thinking like you know if they're gonna eat. Yeah, they're gonna be happy Yes, probably perform better absolutely. It's a definitely a parental Motherly probably more so than fatherly, but I'll get killed for that too But I guess definitely an instinct that you have you want your child to be fed so I can totally relate to that Absolutely, and you're right like if we had dads if was only dad's order and we'd never have an issue because the dads are just like Yeah, no, the hunger of the leases. Yeah, yeah, yeah, just true But no that the nine out of ten are sending additional lunch just in case Which is absolutely a fair because again you don't have Guarantee that a teacher is going to or the kid is gonna even have time to sit on eat us So you want something that they're gonna eat fast So what happened was we removed it bought what we did was we went to Glen Haven and Whittle and we went to lock nanz and bur and they're both specialist lock nanz in pork and Glen Haven and chicken Can you help us because at the time the ever say aye and they still are looking at reformulating Children's meals and restaurants and stuff They did that years ago with breakfast cereals So rather than telling parents stop giving your kids breakfast cereals They called in the suppliers and said reduce salt sugar at source That is something that's coming down the line with Susty's and gusions and stuff in Ireland, but we jumped to the gun and we immediately Went to providers to see how can we make this product the best it can be to meet the needs of these Children children. Yeah and parents that the parents are like I just want them fed and again back to that there is one and four children in Ireland proven statistically to have more than four adverse childhood experience in their life And by that I mean sexual abuse physical abuse trauma divorce Like one in four children scattered. That's across all schools. It's actually a global statistic that holds true in Ireland So if you've got a highly stressed kid going into school and now you're putting 120 grams of broccoli in front of them In the meal, they don't recognize and they're barking at it, you know So we went to Glen Haven and we said can you produce for us something to help so they made 100% chicken breast And whole grain bread crumbs and they toast it and bake it It's the only gusion of its kind in Europe and they did it specifically for us And when we did it we specifically designed it without an NDA So that any supplier in Ireland can use that so we could have just said now this is ours and Come with us because we have this option But we actually left it open for any supplier to use that product So it meets the criteria that's not flash-fried And it meets all the nutritional criteria and the kids recognize it and eat it And I know that sometimes people say well that's a gait way then to them Thinking that all gusions are going to be okay or not But it's also a gateway to get them into that habit of Eating during the day and eating with their peers and learning what they're eating and learning what's in it So it's supposed to look for you I'll find Yeah, our version of looking at us and if you want to see it in a negative way, ground It was really, really welcomed by parents who just really wanted their kids to eat something during the day. And the kids, then, were reporters coming back, happier, healthier. And the same with our sausages with lachnans, so removing any sofas, I think you'd usually find in sausages. And it's actually wrapped in an alganate seaweed casing. The kids don't know the difference of that. As was the challenges that the wider public don't really know that. So they're seeing a gusion going, "Why isn't this the same texture as a gusion from McDonald's?" Or restaurant, and you're like, "Because it's baked, it's very unique in what it is." And then people might say, "Well, sure, that's processed." But you don't have to eat that. There's 16 different options. These are for the kids that really need that option in their day. These are for the parents that really need to prioritize. I want my kid fed, and they'll try then start ordering different things on different days. And just try and build that habit and create that kind of awareness and nutrition and aware of school meals and deplete that stigma in the classroom. So that all kids are eating it. All kids are finishing their meals. And in the long run, then, when those kids grow up to be the leaders of the future, that it might get them to see their fellow classmates as equal as opposed to other. So did you do that? So you took the gusion and sausages off the menu. People went wild. And was it them? They decided to reformulate it. Then we reformulate it. And then we went back. Because you wanted to bring it back healthier. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, exactly. Okay. No. It doesn't. So I think prior to that, were you providing the flash fried ones? Sure, we only had it for a few weeks before. A few months before that in about 80 schools. Okay. Do you get me anything in the class? Yes. Okay. In the class. In the class. In the class. The classes came on year by year. Okay. I understand. Every budget since they've been adding more and more schools to the University of School meals. And how did you add sneaky bits of protein into the meals? Add lentils and stuff. Yeah. So actually, yeah, that was another thing. So at the time, I remember reading something that 75% of kids in Ireland were lacking in fiber. So we contacted a few different suppliers to see what we could do. And it was you and I leave her at the time, came to us and said, they had a fantastic developmental chef. And she went off to lock and think about what she could do. And she came back with the idea of lentils. I put lentils into minstitious. So now all our minstitious have got 30% lentils in it. So we put out two tons of lentils a week into children's diet. Two tons. Yeah. So is that macro piece of nutrition that people are missing as well? Of what good has been done out of it? And I suppose to move to waste because it's kind of the next one people are saying, but what if the kids aren't finishing, what waste? Is it a waste if a kid is trying something new? If they're building up a reputation that you can't have a set portion for every kid and expect every kid to finish it, particularly if you're sending in a ham sandwich in our area. And then there are some people that will say, well, I don't think the quality is good enough so I have to send in, I mean with our kids because I a bit like you were saying about, could you just force kids to eat it? That's what Japan do. I don't think that'd be welcome in Ireland. But the thing about quality is it depends on what we look at it. You have to realize there is no kitchen cooking facilities in this country. You're going to be limited as to what you can do. You're going to have a difference like we would put out a meal and I'm not joking. Every single thing is a 50/50 reaction. With a 50% of kids saying it's the nice thing they've ever had and 50% say they don't like it. You have parents then that might be used to given their kids a five-year-old falafel and the order of falafel loss. That's not what they're expecting because it has to meet our assault, sugar requirements, reporting requirements. It has to meet the budget and it has to meet the cooking restrictions. So it is a very nuanced and multi-faceted challenge in school meals. What about the people that give out and say, "Oh, this stuff is ultra-processed." Look, the chicken has been flown in from Thailand and all this stuff. Like how? What message do you have for those people? Just being candid because we've seen it online. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's been a few different things. Do your research first? I think recently, this kind of took off about how big companies are only enough for the profit. They're giving poor quality food to keep profits. You're like, "Where show me evidence of that? Show me how 320 you can make massive profits." And also, you have to remember, you have to make a profit because you have to be able to provide, if you win a tender for three years, you need to be able to provide that school for three years and you need to be able to budget for fluctuations and participation and the fact that the meal isn't index linked. So if you're not making a profit, you're in trouble in two years' time and you're going to see a lot of small providers collapse out of the system with that. There's also this perception I actually saw a program recently talking about how local small providers are doing a great job and they are, to clarify, a great job. And they're hitting their meals in the drop in the mainland. It's a gorgeous kind of a local community thing. But the reality is, they're doing the exact same thing as we're doing. There's no food industry in Ireland that are picking potatoes and peeling them and mashing them in a restaurant. It's not happening. Preprep revenge is what comes into this country. It's just not a maybe naturally talked about, but that's the reality of what happens in the catering industry in Ireland. I have friends that own a cafe and they choose to. It's a small cafe, Rembrandt's Cafe, shout out to them. But the chef gets up at three in the morning to go in and slow roast his pork. He does that. Like they could buy in, they said it'd be much easier for them to just buy it in because that's what you're encouraged to do. And I've seen that in different cafes where you're like, where are the kitchen's tiny? But then you see that the chicken is coming out of the bag, pre-cooked and it's gone into a microwave. And I don't think people realise that. And I don't think they realise that whoever cooked that chicken is a specialist, a cook and chicken and they are tightly regulated on that. So they're the best in that business for it. And I'd rather buy a chicken off that guy than somebody that's throwing that in a pan and looking after this and looking after that. So when you're dealing with feeding thousands of vulnerable children, you have to make sure that that is absolutely on point every time. So cook and raw chicken to fulfil something like madness. You can't imagine if you give kids this area. I know. You know? And also your cafe friend can pass on the cost to the customer. We can't. It's limited. It's set. And God knows when it's ever going to be. So you have to work within that constraints of it. So the local providers have to also bring it in preps. I don't know why there's this concept of a big supplier where all Irish, there's only one actually international company that bought up an Irish supplier. The rest of us, and they're doing their best as well. There's kind of a presumption of malice at the minute. And you're like, why, as a country Ireland has started that hugely. I don't know if it's a trumpers, I don't know if it's a social media, but this presumption of malice. And I just, you're like, why can't we go back to say 1980s, tidy towns when the community looked at something that needed fixing and they came together collectively to fix it. And it took time. It's like the Scoomiel scheme in Finland. So they're all there since the 1940s. They're only three years in and there's only 181 days in a school year. So just as we're getting learning whatever school closes for three for two months and just as you're back up again, they close for a weekend Easter or Halloween. You're just back up and then it's closed for two weeks of Christmas. So it's a really challenging environment and you're only paid for the 181 days and you're only paid for the kids participating. But you do have all this additional kind of noise coming in and it's just it's something that collectively there's kind of like the department, the government this year have started interdepartmental kind of groups. But suppliers are in part of that. They're kind of seen as dirty, malicious out there rather than actually experts taking the cars in the conversations all stakeholders. Correct. Correct. Correct. Just like what happens over school day? What happens if there's a storm? Oh, truth. And you can't deliver the meals because the school's closed. And you give those meals to homeless charities or send them out to no, why not? Because I'm contentious issue. So storm owned last year. We actually had produced meals and a lot of the schools didn't close until after the 9 o'clock news. So we're standing there with Vans loaded drivers trying to get into work. Nina, we didn't realize was like the worst climate epicenter in the country. So it might be so an end of them, but it's known and Nina, we can't get out. So that provision is crack. So storm owned came and we plugged in all our vans are all refrigerated and we were told we had to dump all that food. Even though it's cold, it's in a cold supply chain. Even though it's go down ready for five days, we always write the best before a day of the day that they're eating it. Even though it is fine for five days, we always write it that point in time. And because that was written on it, you have to dump it. And food clouds are only there. You want to take the meals because they'd be considered high risk. Gosh. Yeah. And open to last year, you weren't paid for that. So you're dumping all this food gone. Jesus, like the goodness. You're absorbing the cost as well. Yeah, you're absorbing. Yeah. But now if they're laid for those contingency plans, they're not written verbally. We have. We have. Yeah. But still it's waste. It's food waste, which isn't ideal either. Yeah. Well, now, so the other thing is that that's a piece people miss about food waste. So you're looking at 10% of kids in any given day since COVID are out of school. 10 to 15%. So that's a huge challenge. Teacher might see meals going in the van, which is very frustrating, but it's because the kid isn't in school. So we would run a lot of pledges with kids saying, you know, you're going to pledge to come to school and you're going to pledge to each dinner. But from a macro, what people are missing is we can predict how many students are going to be eating on a given day. So we're now using predictive modeling on that. So we work with farmers and our suppliers to know exactly what's needed. So we're not bringing waste in from a macro level. And because suppliers don't need to start individually packing stuff for smaller retail shops for lunches and stuff. So rather than you buying your loaf of bread and your ham and whatever, all your kids in your classroom, we're able to buy things up macro. So even the package in the comes in is that macro and it's very much reduced. So like Bali Maloon. So I never thought of that. Yeah. Yeah. People keep missing that enormous savings at that level. So by the time your kid is bringing a lunch in school and if they don't finish it, teacher parents might say, look at that waste. You're like, was it wasted if other kids in the class learned and had that appear thing? So what constitutes as waste? I just choose to go thinking about the wider topic. And food is so important. And so basic instinct for us. And we need to teach our children how to eat what the right foods are. Correct. Taste different textures. If you have 16 different options, Jesus, this one for three weeks. Yeah. Where they can be trying different things. I'm going to see a lot of parents will say, oh my kid won't eat it. So I won't order it. Because they don't have the waste. You're like, what? Let them try it. Don't not tend them too many snacks. Let them try it. They're with peers. They will act very differently when they're with peers. And do the schools provide the cutlery as you provide cutlery as well? We try and encourage parents to send in their own forks, but we do provide compostable. But you can only give them a forks. So when we're considering a meal, we have to consider the biggest challenge that I do, lie about, think about is wobbly teeth. So you have to give a kid, you can't give them a knife, but you need to be able to accommodate wobbly teeth and kids trying to ease around that. Okay. But I suppose as well. Oh my god, those little wobbly teeth. wobbly teeth. So they're so cute. So the teachers as well, then the challenge there is the stress on teachers right now. And for a teacher who is maybe, because we've streamlined a lot of special needs and you're a diverse children. And because one and four children are experiencing adverse childhood experiences. Okay. You've got a teacher who's goes to college to learn to be a teacher. But in the arena that they're in, they're a teacher, but they are also an OT psychologist, a counselor, a special needs assistant. You know, they are all things are man in that classroom. They're given very like curriculum changes, they're heavily inspected. And then on top of that, they are now asked to supervise school meals. But they're not given any guidance on it. They're not given time. Kids are not given additional time to eat the meals. There has been no change to the educational day. This has just been put on as a bolt on. And how many minutes in the day do kids get to eat their lunch? What's the normal lunch? Around seven minutes by the time they're to eat five to ten, depending on the school, but they have to go out and play after that. So teachers don't get a break until the kids go out. So it's eating into that teacher's break from that classroom as well. And now you're seeing special needs funding reduced. So there's a lack of, there's a lack of help in the classroom with that as well. That's a little kid trying to manage a box and eat a meal that they might be accustomed to. And now you're going to have a child who's opening a box to 120 grams of vegetables, which is enormous to small little child. And if you, as a parent, standing over them if you can't get them to eat that, then it's very different, difficult in a school environment when they're relatively unsupervised. Or the teacher is supervising, but is unsure where is their level of contribution. And responsibility, responsibility. Because can you imagine if one teacher encourages the child's eat, you could get grief for that from home. If you don't, you might get grief for that. Teachers are really, really in a very difficult position in the current education model. So what do we need to change this year? All of this. What, like, you know, Blue Sky say what could come in that wouldn't cost an arm in a leg in terms of us moving forward and trying to get to that model where like like Japan, like, forget about the Bahamurines, say just accept that that's not going to happen, right? But even the portion the children haven't eat that amount of food or whatever, explain to me where we can in a short, medium term, make this a positive experience for everyone involved. The parents, the children, the teachers, you, the supplier. So I suppose what actually just what what we did with the vegetables for some two or three of our meals, because there were so many children and we were getting such a backlash. What we did actually, that's because the vegetables, because I'm just imagine a big play in bits of broccoli and even I don't, yeah, I'll eat it because I know it's good for me, but I don't find them appetizing. Yeah. When you've got a child with neurodiversity, looking at that, it really kind of affect the whole class in the afternoon. So what we did, we actually sent free apples and oranges into every classroom. So your kid is getting that planar meal, but with an apple and orange. Now it does look like the department are going to reverse them, that and force the 120 into the box. That is going to be a bit of a challenge. But what can we do? A few really simple things. Number one, as a country decides that it is not a welfare model, we need a progressive model. That's what we should be aiming for. And we are so close. But because we talk about it so negatively, people are just focusing the negative and they're missing the amazing opportunity we have and the amazing, amazing progress we've made. When the Arachtus Pidio recently looked at scumas, they went to Finland to see how Finland do it. And they have kitchens in their schools. 1.5 million was the cost of the kitchen in the school that the Arachtus committee went to view. It's not going to happen here in Ireland. Not going to happen. So we need to look at what can we do at our facilities and drop meals hot into a school, or regenerate, or regenerate them. It's completely fine. But we need to look at what they've kind of done is they've bolstered on building regulations to building a new school onto regenerating food in the school. We need to actually come up with regulations that suit school meals specifically. We need to look at food safety regulations specifically for that school meals. We need to look at, as well as at the Interdepartmental Group, rather than a tick box exercise, is keep in mind that progressive opportunity. What Finland do is they integrate it into the community. But before you can do any of that, you need the community to all agree together to work together. So we need to decide as a country. What do you mean integrate into the community? Integrated into so even time to learn. Like the parents decide sending their kids into school. I trust the scumila scheme. I trust it's going to take a few years. The trust there might be waste, but this is the long term where we're getting to. It's the community as well as of the Interdepartmental Group. It's the Department of Education, Department of Social Protection. That same long-term goal of, yes, it's feeding a hungry child now, but we're going to get everyone involved because the long-term benefits to poverty are exceptional. It's proven in other countries. We are already at a phenomenal place in Ireland with a 90 to 95% participation rate. Finland's have dropped to 40%, and they've just set a national goal to try and get to 90% participation by 2030. Do they we're already there? Do they know why it dropped to 40%? Yes, it's really interesting. They reckon that one of the main reasons is parents sending in meals from home now that they never used to, and to the influence of adolescent girls. Now, interestingly, when we look at our feedback and we go into schools, fifth and sixth class girls have a huge impact on the rest of the school and how it's seen in the school. Unbelievable. Interestingly, the World Food Program lists feeding girls a school meal in their top three priorities to change the world. If they can get a school meal into girls, they will change the world. I can prove that as well. The fifth and sixth class girls can change the world. The problem is right now they are doing it, but it's done negatively. It's done as not cool. It's not seen as progressive. They're not being taught what it can do for the future. They're not really, we're not getting to harness the power of those young girls. And why do the girls reject them? We're not. I think it's just a coolness thing. Okay. And you hear a lot of them and they're mimicking what they hear from home. They're mimicking social media. They're on social media now and they're turning up their nose and it's such a pity when the positive isn't getting out there. And even as a country, I'll keep going back to the what do we as a country want to be seen as? Why are we not promoting the unbelievable positives? Like the interesting thing again is we might get negative social media, but our orders will go up. There's a silent undercurrent I think of positivity in the country. But we're afraid to share it better. We're afraid. God forbid we'd be seen as happy or approving of something. And sure, wouldn't you have notions about yourself if you were successful? That's a huge thing. That's a huge thing. Is it the availability or something like that? What is it? I don't know because I was even yesterday in a conversation with a colleague and we were just discussing that you're like, our literacy in Ireland is number two in the world. You know, our education system is phenomenal. But when you google Irish education system, all you can see is complaints about it. And people give an out. And we're like, realistically, if teachers don't give out and complain, well, then how are they going to fight for additional funding? We're not rewarding people for positive behavior. We're only rewarding negativity and responding to complaints. Whereas, she even looked at the amount of media coverage of your man, eenach. If we just ignored him, if we just ignored all that, she's, do you not think? I asked a guy recently who's involved in media. I was I was like, why that headline? - Yeah. - And he said, "Because conflict sells." And you're like, "Isn't that really unfortunate?" And to be honest with you, the Inux situation, I don't know what I'm gonna put, like to the public leave the man alone to stop, like what that has become is just, will somebody just go back to basics and pull two or three humans into a room to talk? And this was that happens also because we keep saying to influencers or people that are big in the realm, when you just come in and talk to us, come in and see what we're doing and learn all these challenges and learn where we want to get to. It is not a big company trying to just get down to profits and give them cheap food. It's actually, we are trying, killing ourselves to get Ireland to the number one in the world in school meals. And we are nearly there. We actually had three government officials from Saudi Arabia fly over to see us in the lunch bag last year because they had heard what we were doing as a company to address the culture of school meals because they're thinking to bring in school meals in there. But as a country, we should be shouting that for all suppliers and what we're doing and where we're trying to get to and remembering that there's an interesting psychology there of I suppose if you nurture those kids in the classroom if you influence them positively, what they will eat, what they will try and what they will report home. - I also think it's so interesting to say, if you can get teenage girls or the 56th class girls to buy into, it's like we know educators, women, empowered women and young girls can change the world. It is amazing and it would be wonderful to be able to get those girls and explain to them. - Yeah, phenomenal. Because in Africa, like Nairobi, all those, it is the girls that lead it. It is huge emphasis put on keeping those young girls. They know that keeping them fat and keeping them in school. They are the change makers of the future. And it is the same here, but they are just getting negative media. And this was a lot of the influence they're getting online. It's about their appearance and how they look and how they present rather than tangible changes, they can make to improve the country. And that's an impact to that classroom, that peer mentality. There's a really interesting study about the veil of ignorance John Hays did in the 1970s. And it was this experiment of, if you were to get policy makers to write policy, not knowing where their place was going to be in society, would you still write policy the same way? And I think when you think of that in a classroom, if you can just keep all kids on an even keel with the same exposure, you don't know which of them in the future is going to be writing policies. And you don't know which of the others in the class are going to be affecting. So I just think that if we can just-- That is an amazing class. Yeah, if you don't know where you are in society, then that's why it nearly triggers me. It's a trigger when I hear people say, "But it's for the poor children." Sure, we'll just give them that because it's for the poor kids. And we're just taking part in this for the poor kids. And you're like, "No, it's the universe. It's the need for the universal." Your kid might need a school meal, but the older kids in the class might need your child to help elevate them up and out of poverty. And they can do it as simply by just trying the meal, reducing the snacks out. And you can sure you've got a good supplier. It's like vaccines and herd immunity. It's basically the same idea, except this is on a school meal level. And we can do so much. Jera, what are your plans for the future? Oh, go on, tell us a little bit. I suppose for the lunch bag, we have developed a poor project online. So what we do is we teach kids the SPHT nutritional content online through our little poppers. So type teachers can go on a break time. They can play a video that'll teach kids about carbohydrates and teach them a protein. And there's let us some plans and exercises. So we're probably going to expand on that a bit. And is that only available in the classroom? Or can kids look at it online? Website, the lunch bag. Okay. The poor project. It's called the poor project. P-O-E. P-O-E. Where does P-O-E come from? There's actually a very long story. Actually, my son went into filament documentary in volunteering and he started off this poor project. I think it was actually a very unusual play on Edgar Allan pole at the time. But it was for kids to go on and learn because it's not in the curriculum. We actually have a book coming out. We're going to gift it for free to all our kids. And the idea of it is to try and explain Grellen to children, to try and explain hunger hormones and the importance of sitting in your classroom. I'm putting your feet on the floor and your bones in your seat and your back to the back of the seat. So if you're stably sitting in your chair, then Grellen might be released. But if you're up and jumping and balanced around the place, your little caveman brain doesn't know that's time for food or it's safe. Oh, and you're telling them about the little caveman brain? Trying to explain that. Oh, not that. Yeah, so that's coming down the line. And then I have an offshoot coming as well. So I'm working with a guy we're putting together an apt train teachers on neurodiversity, a learning platform for teachers and for schools that they can go on and get practical learning for how to deal with different types of neurodiversity in the classroom and behavioral challenges. That's completely separate now to the lunch bag. It's a different company altogether. And why is the interest in neurodiversity? Is it from your social work days? Is it from what you've seen in the classroom with lunch bag? Or why is this interest? Usually it stems from something. I'd say now if I was a child in the world now, I'd say I'd be heavily medicated somewhere. I just caught and settled in school. I really, really, really, I knew what primary school did really well. Secondary school, I just really struggled with. I just didn't fit in with any of my learning capabilities. Probably a trigger for that. My daughter has autism. And going into the classrooms now, working in social care, yes. But going into the classrooms now and seeing how burnt out 86% of teachers in Ireland reported burn out last year in a DCU study, moderate to high levels of burnout. And it is that kind of not being prepared for the arena that they're going into and the demands on them is just crazy. So when I looked at-- I met this guy, Dr. David Cashman. He's the well-children's network in Cork. And listen to him talking about his PhD. It's all about trauma informed learning. And then meeting us was all the principles that had PhDs and amazing experience in different issues within the classroom. So we've developed this app or hope into launch in September. And the idea is that schools can choose what they want to focus on in the year within their wellness and inclusion. And around that kind of trauma-based learning or do they want to learn about neurodiversity? And the teachers can go on and there's little videos and resources for them to literally teach them how to set up an autism classroom. So we are building on-- I think it's something like 1,800 special needs classrooms in this country over the next few years, who's teaching them how to open them. Even though SNAs, you're not trained specifically in how to deal with the child with autism. A teacher is not trained how to deal with a child that has adverse childhood experiences. And they all bring their unique set of circumstances these children too, so you can't cook, you cut them either. Can I cook, you cut them? And you have such different ranges. So you have some kids that are so ahead in the classroom whose parents might have the capabilities to buy additional books and learning and workbooks at home for them, get them way ahead, and be very smart children. And then you might have children that are coming into school highly stressed and they're unsure of the rules of the classroom or what the moods of the teacher of that day and they're highly stressed and just not ready to learn and hungry in a lot of instance. So the idea is how do you equip a teacher to address their burnout and to be able to deal practically with that level of difference within a classroom? So we're hoping to launch that in September and see where that can go internationally as well with that because it is a global problem. It's a global problem, not teaching teachers for the new arena that's out there. Change in the world, little by little share. Take it over. [LAUGHTER] Yeah. But it never rests. I've definitely the last few weeks for personal circumstances I've taken a step back from the operational day today because it is exhausting. Our staff are in there five in the morning and starting to prep and get ready. We have schools opening nine o'clock in the morning and anything goes wrong anywhere. Our operative doesn't turn up and you have to make sure there's somebody covering that school. A lot of road screwing issues going on during the day and then we've drivers out throughout the night. So it is a 24/7 operation. It doesn't stop and there's just so many different elements to us. We had to build a garage onto the back of our factory because we had so much vehicle repairs. How no one thinks of that. It's all those issues that you don't-- Yeah, that is an enormous logistics of that. So yeah, no. And then when things take off and social media in a negative way, does that affect you as well? Or can you switch off from us? Or do you know ultimately I'm doing a good thing. I need to focus on what I'm doing. Or are you human and does it upset you? Human. It did upset me more than it does now. At the start, maybe, because we had the service where it was paid and we became EY finalist in 2023 and there was all that positivity around what we were trying to do. We're still trying to do the same thing now, but the difference is because it's universal and it's not maybe the audience we'd target and go after because it's taxpayer and now there's so many other suppliers. All the negativity, the psychological shift in that has been enormous. It doesn't bother me as much now as it did at the start because we've gotten so many. I think people are getting sick of negative media. They know we're trying our best. They know there's no malice intended if something goes wrong. People might have just had a bad day at work. And we're getting really good support by principles that are seeing the difference. Media has a lot to answer for though. We had a principle recently who went into our office to talk around school meals when they were doing the school meal review. And his submission when you read it is so positive. It's fantastic about what school meals are doing in that environment. But when you looked at the social media or the newspaper the next day, they pulled one sentence you said about the struggle they have with ten. and shows not to highlight any of the positives of that class. - That's a disgrace. - No, it is. We see that over and over again. - And the problem with that is, while it might create a headline, that is actually filtering down to those impressionable girls, and it's getting parents to have fear. And now you're pulling out of the service, and now the very kids that we are saying that we're helping, the kids in poverty that we're trying to get them out of stigma, you've just more put them in a box. Because now they might be, you're gonna head for a place where you're heading for Finland, where you're gonna have to please a participation. And I was actually talking to a government representative recently who was like, well, it'd be fine if it falls to 40%. Why would it be fine? Because it's just gonna look after just the pocket in that small capture of time, when it could actually address poverty in the long term. So hunger is an issue in 20, 30 years' time. And that's a really sad, small frame mentality. When as a country, if we could just come together, pull together, we will leave Japan and the happening place within two years. That's the reality of it. And it's very frustrating. I suppose while people are very public and given out, they're very complimentary, private. So I actually, the day after there was a recent thing, which really affected actually one of our marketing girls, that we were kind of accused of heel marketing by a little icon that was put on a page incorrectly. All the factual information was correct, but graduate students, she just pulled the icon thing. I actually hadn't been at work. So it wasn't signed off, just went up. And for that poor kid, the backlash and the enormity of that, and all those jobs and all that reputation, like it's not right that social media could screw when actually the good that's been done isn't been spoke about and the benefits. So after an event recently, I actually was having a very, very work on my life. And everyone was a bit down. And it's how you're trying to get the motivated. So we said, you know what we'll do? We'll go out to Boris Cain, shout out to Sarah, the fantastic principal there. And we just went around to classrooms to talk to kids and were like, tell us what you'd like to improve. What do you want to change? What would you like to see different? And the teacher said to them, you can give out what you're not gonna get in trouble. Not one child in that whole school give out. All they had was ideas. Why do you do this? Are we thinking should do this? Are you know what would be really good? And just the positivity and that mentality of improvement was just gorgeous. So I just hedged the classroom and talked to kids. That's the stress. Yeah, that's the best place. Jero, what piece of advice would you give young people today? Don't let the world in. A bit like the, there's one particular kid that we're in Boris Cain and just this, the excitement as their ideas and how they could fix the world. And I think it's really sad, whatever happens in life. And they get to that fifth, sixth place, class. And they get to that fifth and sixth class that negativity comes in. If we could just harness and keep that curiosity, the little entrepreneurial brain that they have, the creativity, if we could just try hang on to that. Because it's a very cruel world. But if you can just keep your women'sy, it would be my advice. Yeah. And what's the meaning of life? Oh, I'd be down in an early world. We're on hold here now as well. I'd be a big believer in. And he wears the egg theory. I just think we are just the universe in Karen is just to experience it for all the different gamut of human emotions. So do what you can to be kind in a day and make the world a little bit better at the end of the day. And it doesn't have to be a big grand gesture. It doesn't have to be feeding thousands of kids or teaching thousands of kids just one small gesture to make someone's day a bit better. Be mine. Sure, it's been an absolute pleasure having you on. Thank you so much for doing it any year, Ty. Spring Clean? Well, I'm not losing a whole weekend to that. I'm all about the quick wins, open the windows, fresh things up, tackle the jobs, winter left behind. And everyone in the house gets drafted in. There are no passengers. And that's why I'm loving Brillo's new cleaning collection. Well, wait for it. Easy. So this spring, you make the mess and let Brillo get the job done. (upbeat music)