113 primary boarding schools in Quang Nam province have just participated in the conference on deploying the Nutrition-balanced Menu Development Software on the morning of April 27th, 2018.

Mr. Nguyen Duc Hieu – Head of Central Branch was giving a speech at the conference on behalf of Ajinomoto Vietnam

Children's rations at Chu Van An Primary School – Hanoi, which is implementing the School Meal Project

The conference was organized by Quang Nam Department of Education and Training in cooperation with Ajinomoto Vietnam in order to help schools use the software effectively.

Improving children’s nutritional status through rational school meals is one of the key points of the National Nutrition Strategy and the Master Plan for physical health and stature development of Vietnamese people in the period of 2011-2030. 

The rate of malnourished children in Vietnam is higher than that in the world, concentrating in rural areas. Meanwhile, overweightness is getting higher and higher in both children and adults in urban areas, particularly in big cities.  

Seeing the current double nutritional burden, as well as understanding current difficulties of schools, along with its advantages as a leading company in nutrition and health with extensive experience in menu development, Ajinomoto Vietnam studied and initiated the School Meal Project in 2012, then has been implementing the Project in collaboration with the National Institute of Nutrition – the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Education and Training.

The Nutrition-balanced Menu Development Software is part of the School Meal Project, helping to provide and develop nutrition-balanced, diverse, delicious menus and support the boarding meal management. The software is provided totally free on the Project’s website: www.buaanhocduong.com.vn. Each primary boarding school registers for an account to have full access to the software’s functions.

The software’s menus were developed in over a year through many processes of surveys, analyses, formula formation, testing and careful adjustment. After that, they were approved by the Appraisal Council of the National Institute of Nutrition - the Ministry of Health and the Evaluation Council of the Ministry of Education - Training. The software offers schools the diverse menu bank of 120 available menus with 360 non-repeatable lunch dishes which are nutrition-balanced based on age needs of pupils, diverse, delicious and are divided into 3 regions: the North, the Central and the South. The software’s outstanding features help schools to create new menus by combining available dishes in the menu bank or by using local ingredients in each area; calculate and manage the expenses of pupils’ meals.