*3.2. Official Controls (OC) in Terms of Both Hygiene Conditions and Nutritional Guidelines*

Hygienic–sanitary and nutritional OC were carried out in the same 22 school complexes and 26 classes where students were enrolled for goal 1. Of the 22 schools, in 8 (36.4%) school canteens, meals were prepared on site, while 14 (63.6%) were managed by a specialized private company, and meals came from an external cooking center. A general compliance with the minimum requirements in terms of food safety was verified; however, some non-conformities were found in eight facilities. Some inadequacies were found only regarding the wear-out of some work-tops, the presence of mosquito nets that were not properly maintained, and the absence of lockers divided into dirty and clean compartments. Moreover, workspace areas were quite small with respect to the requirements (given for by the regional guidelines for school catering). In such cases, the Competent Authority issued mandatory provisions to the FBOs (Table 3—Hygienic–sanitary section).



A general compliance with the minimum requirements in terms of nutritional features was also confirmed, but in 27% of the enrolled facilities, an in-depth documentary investigation concerning the nutritional requirements of the menus proposed for special and non-special diets was needed. Furthermore, in 9% of cases, inconsistencies were found between the meals scheduled on the day of the OC and the foods actually prepared, due to the difficulty in finding on market and from retail sources the ingredients needed by the menu. The sample investigated also showed that 86% of FBOs have a specific certification of attendance to training courses on special diets, with particular reference to the methods of preparing and administering meals for people affected by celiac disease (Table 4—Nutritional section).



In total, for the hygienic–sanitary section, the number of prescriptions issued were as follows: documentary 1 (5%), structural 5 (23%), management 2 (9%), and organizational 3 (14%).

For the nutritional section, the number of actions that were taken to ensure full compliance with the sector regulations were, in particular: documentary 4 (27%), managerial 3 (14%), and organizational 2 (9%).

With regard to both nutritional and hygienic evaluations, no differences were reported between schools having internal or external services.

#### *3.3. Implementation of All the Prescribed Improvement Actions*

To allow the verification of compliance with the given prescriptions, eight follow-up OC were carried out during the four months following the first round of OC, aiming at verifying the resolution of 20 inadequacies and minor non-conformities previously detected in 8 of 22 schools enrolled. Despite some difficulties for FBOs related to finding the economic resources to be allocated to extraordinary maintenance interventions—which made it necessary to grant some time extensions to complete the execution of the works that involved structures or to encourage the purchase of materials—full compliance with the requirements and the checklists were concluded favorably during the scholastic year under analysis.
