SOME of Scotland's councils are flying chicken nuggets from Thailand for youngsters' school dinners, it has been claimed.
The Green Party said a freedom of information (FoI) request to local authorities showed that just one council – Stirling – served chicken that was shown to have come from Scotland.
But the party said five councils – Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dundee, Aberdeen and Perth and Kinross – all source a chicken product for their school meals from Thailand. Meanwhile, Edinburgh, Dundee, Perth and Kinross and Highland councils source a chicken product from Holland.
Scottish Greens had asked council leaders in Scotland's seven cities, as well as those in East Lothian, West Lothian and Midlothian, where they got the chicken for their school meals from.
Stirling Council was the only authority that said it sourced its chicken from Scotland – with 90% coming from north of the border and 10% from elsewhere in the UK. Meanwhile, the Greens said responses to their FoI requests showed only 14% of the chicken served up by both Dundee City Council and Perth and Kinross Council came from the UK while Aberdeen City Council said 30% of its chicken was British.
Alison Johnstone, Green MSP for the Lothian region and the party's food spokeswoman, said: "I have long-standing concerns about imported meat and there's got to be a better way than flying chicken nuggets from Thailand."
A Scottish Government spokeswoman said: "While procurement decisions are entirely a matter for local authorities, the Scottish Government provides guidance setting out nutritional requirements and quality standards for school meals, and we expect both to be observed.
"Within the boundaries of strict EU rules, the Scottish Government strongly encourages local produce to be procured wherever commercially possible."
Local government body Cosla insisted all school meals were "extremely high quality".
Councillor Douglas Chapman, spokesman for education, children and young people, said: "The quality of school meals continues to be a priority for local authorities and many are engaged with quality schemes such as that promoted by the Soil Association, but it is a fact of life that councils also have to control costs and balance budgets.
"This survey appears limited by looking only at chicken and school meals served in cities, while school meals cover the whole spectrum of nutritional food and not just one product."
l MPs have condemned the slow pace of the investigation into the horsemeat scandal, with no prosecutions six months after the problem was first identified.
The Commons Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee said the authorities in both the UK and Ireland had yet to acknowledge the scale of the illegal activity involved.
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