School canteens, for families an average monthly expenditure of 85-86 euro

For Adriana Bizzarri, Cittadinanzattiva's National School Coordinator, "every day in Italy almost 2 million students use school meals, a sector that represents a strategic investment for public health and for the country's economic development. However, the ISTAT data on the material poverty of so many families and so many minors cannot leave us indifferent and, on the contrary, require prompt and concrete answers: we are talking about 23% of families at risk of poverty in 2024, a percentage that rises to 42% - a 5% increase over 2023 - for those with three or more minor children. Among the latter, 10.4% (it was 9.5% in 2023) are in serious material and social deprivation".

Hence his request to 'provide continuous interventions, for at least a five-year period, to support families, but also to strengthen the Fund for the fight against food poverty at school, envisaged by the last Budget Law and intended for municipalities to provide contributions to allow free access to the canteen service for primary school students belonging to families in financial difficulty. With regard to the Fund,' adds Bizzarri, 'we ask that the implementing decree be issued as soon as possible to distribute the resources among the local authorities.

The report also presents an overview of the funds made available under the NRP in the various territories for school canteens.

According to the National Register, more than one third of school buildings, i.e. 13,865 out of 40133, have a canteen. The distribution, however, is not homogeneous: in fact, in the southern regions just over one building in five has a school canteen (22% in the South, 21% in the Islands) and the share drops to 15.6% in Campania and 13.7% in Sicily. The difference with the regions of the Centre (Umbria, Marche, Tuscany, Latium) and the North (Valle d'Aosta, Piedmont, Liguria, Emilia Romagna, Lombardy, Friuli Venezia Giulia, Veneto) is very clear: 41.2% and 43.1% respectively are the buildings with school canteens in those areas. The region with the highest number of canteens is Valle d'Aosta (72%), followed by Piedmont (62.4%), Tuscany (59.6%) and Liguria (59.1%).

According to the Regis platform, as of December 2024, a total of 961 interventions have been financed under the PNRR. In order to bridge the territorial gap, about 58% of the funds should have gone to the southern regions, but, looking at the final rankings, it emerges that the regions of the South and the Islands have a total of 489 interventions, equal to 50.88% of the total. In terms of economic resources, however, the South and the Islands receive a total of 37% of the resources allocated, the North 48%, and the Centre 15%.

Just over half of the interventions, 516, or 54%, involve the construction of new canteens, of which 228 (44%) in the south and the islands. In the other cases, therefore, it is a question of extension, safety, energy efficiency, maintenance, etc. of pre-existing canteens.