Hygienic school lunches in Gällivarev

The collaboration between Foodduck and the Swedish municipality of Gällivare dates back to the autumn of 2019, when Foodduck inquired about Gällivare’s interest to cooperate. To Foodduck’s our delight, the municipality was very interested in FOODDUCK® spread dispensers. The team demonstrated the device and the concept at Gällivare at the end of 2019, and “Hedskolan” was the first school in Gällivare to take the spread dispensers into use as of February 2020.

Gällivare, known for its mining operations, is situated in the district of Norrbotten in the north of Sweden, some 100 kilometres north of the Arctic Circle. In Gällivare, there is a central production kitchen that annually delivers some 900 000 meal portions to 23 kitchens in the municipality’s schools, day-care centers, and nursing homes.

Less waste, more cleanliness

Sweden has very advanced school meal practices. All pupils get a warm lunch at school. The device has brought many further improvements and changes to eating at schools in Gällivare. The biggest changes which the device has brought to the schools have been diminishing of spread waste and the bread counter becoming tidier and more welcoming. For Foodduck, it has been very easy to place their spread dispensers in school canteens as they typically have dedicated bread counters.

The personnel have been very satisfied with the FOODDUCK® devices. “It takes a moment to clean the device and change the spread bag, but it’s ok as it’s so easy,” they kitchen staff says. At the beginning, the students did not like the taste of the margarine, having previously used only butter-vegetable oil mixtures. Now, however, the students have accepted the margarine and it tastes good.

Gällivare is planning to change their spread to Carlshamn’s palm oil free plant-based margarin. Logistics and ordering the product are extremely easy for the customer as the product is available from the large and well-known Swedish wholesalers Martin & Servera and Menigo.

”The idea of the device is splendid. With it, we can serve the same spread also to allergic persons. It is great that the spread is not touched by hand at any stage of use and it cannot get spoiled,” says Karin Anttila, Gällivare’s food service manager.

”We have been really satisfied and intend to take new schools along gradually. FOODDUCK® devices have been a success, as schools which were a little bit sceptical at the beginning have taken an interest in the concept and want to have the device!” she continues.

Reliable service even over long distances

Although Gällivare is far from Foodduck’s factory in Naantali, Finland, the comprehensive service agreement makes the maintenance of the leased devices easy and effortless for the customer.  Typically, in the event of a fault, a replacement device is immediately dispatched to the customer by freight and the faulty device is returned to Naantali for repair. Thanks to intelligent devices and evolving technology, small maintenance jobs and updates can be done more and more remotely. And there is always the possibility for our service personnel to come and fix the fault on site.

Foodduck established a local subsidiary in Sweden at the beginning of 2020. Therefore, the customers in Sweden always makes procurement and leasing contracts with Foodduck Sverige.