The Ministry of Education works with other entities to establish what happened with expired cookies and coladas that were found in the Riobamba winery

The Ministry of Education continues with the investigations to clarify the origin of the 25,000 boxes found with school feeding kits in a Riobamba winery.

At that site, personnel from the National Agency for Regulation, Control and Sanitary Surveillance (Arcsa), the Prosecutor’s Office and the Police Intendancy intervened in the place and found a million cookies and 400,000 lanes expired since 2017, following a disposition of a judge of the Civil.

The Minister of Education, María Brown, said yesterday that these kits were part of the school feeding program that did not depend on the Ministry of Education. These were produced in 2016 and with an expiration date in 2017.

In the period from 2014 to 2016, Brown explained, it was under the jurisdiction of the Food Provision Institute (ProAlimentos), which was merged with the National Storage Unit (UNA-EP)

The minister explained that these foods were purchased by UNA-EP and then delivered by Correos del Ecuador to each of the educational institutions.

He said that institution staff investigates with the code if these expired foods had been purchased by UNA-EP or if it was from the supplier’s warehouse that never delivered to the public institution.

The placement was found in warehouses of the Riobamba Industrial Park. Until now, the firm responsible for keeping these expired foods there is unknown.

Likewise, the official announced that meetings have been held with the Minister of Agriculture and Livestock (Magap), since at that time the UNA was in charge of that State portfolio. Dialogues have also been held with Arcsa delegates in order to continue with the investigations into what happened with these school rations.

The school snack that is currently delivered consists of a juice or milk in a tetrapack which is accompanied by a cookie or cereal bar. Each kit has a unit cost of $ 0.33, including distribution to the educational institution. 2’300,000 daily rations are delivered per day.

In 2022, the minister said that more fresh foods (fruits) will be incorporated following the provisions of the Organic Law of School Feeding. For now, a pilot plan with these new implementations has started in Manabí. (I)