Health closes a macro-kitchen in Mallorca and leaves 2,000 school menus in the air

PalmaWhat happened for, with only a few days left to finish the school year, an order to close one of the main central kitchens supplying school canteens in Mallorca has been issued and nearly 2,000 daily menus have been put at risk? This is the question that has been left open after the Ministry of Health of the Balearic Islands decreed the precautionary closure of the central kitchen of the Can Arabí restaurant, a decision made on Monday, June 8, following a health inspection. The closure has had an immediate effect on the school canteen system: 33 educational centers have had to be urgently reorganized and menus redistributed among various companies. In total, Can Arabí managed nearly 45 school canteens, many of them on a catering basis. That same Monday night, the Department of Education activated an emergency device to ensure that no center would be left without service.

The logistical blow is important because Can Arabí does not operate in isolation, but within a broader system of providers that support a large part of the island's school canteens. Together with three other companies —Catering S’Olivera and Comensals Menjadors Escolars, among them— it manages a network of 107 educational centers, more than half of the total. They therefore constitute an oligopoly with great bargaining power and the ability to absorb canteens managed by small companies. Their economic offers are difficult to beat. The closure of Can Arabí has forced the redistribution of orders among three companies and the activation of alternatives in a matter of hours, in the final stretch of the school year.

Repeat offenders

According to sources close to the Ministry of Health, the decision comes after multiple warnings from the inspection services. These sources assure that the company accumulated faults and inadequate practices detected by health inspectors and that, despite the requirements, they would not have been corrected satisfactorily. They also point out that the catering company would not have heeded certain indications from Health, alleging that its scale of production and the volume of centers it served made immediate substitution difficult.

Officially, Health acknowledges that the service had already been the subject of previous proceedings, but defends that the situation this Monday is solely due to non-compliance detected in the last inspection: "In any case, if its activity had been re-authorized, it is because the detected non-compliance had been remedied. The precautionary suspension on Monday is solely due to the non-compliance detected during the last inspection." L’ARA Balears has repeatedly tried to contact those responsible for Can Arabí, without receiving a response.

Despite the impact of the decision, several educational centers agree on highlighting the speed with which they reacted on Tuesday, once the measure was adopted the night before. Marina Vallcaneras, director of CEIPIESO Pintor Joan Miró, explains that "it has been managed very well, because the information arrived late, but the Ministry contacted us personally". She also states that they were able to warn families with enough time for students to bring their own lunchboxes. In the same vein, Xisca Chacopino, director of CEIP Joan Capó, acknowledges that she is not clear about the origin of the problem, but positively values the institutional response: "Whatever it is, the Ministry has resolved it well". Meanwhile, the center maintains its administrative relationship with the affected company: they continue to order menus and water from Can Arabí, but the food is now served by another company.

The incident was not uniform in all centers. In the Part Forana of Mallorca, a director describes a situation of uncertainty and constant changes in the distribution of menus: “There is a mess... from 7:00 AM to 10:00 AM (on Tuesday), they have changed the menu three times”. According to this witness, the management of adapted menus has been particularly problematic: “They only bring the regular ones; they don't bring the ones for allergies, intolerances, and others,” said the director. Other centers consulted explained that the difficulties with Can Arabí were not limited to this episode. A director from Palma assures that they had already received complaints from families about the quality of the food and that there were also organizational problems: “We have had problems with monitoring and with the lack of instructions and training for the staff”. In this center, it had even been requested to reinforce the presence of teachers in the dining room to guarantee its operation: an exceptional measure that was finally authorized.

A controversial company

Beyond the precautionary closure, the management of Can Arabí had already been questioned by some educational communities. One example is the report prepared by the dining hall committee of the AFA of CEIP Duran Estrany in Llubí, dated May 18, 2025. The document points out possible breaches of the awarded contract, especially in relation to commitments for sustainable and local food, which would not have been proven with documentation. It also includes shortcomings in the implementation of management tools, in conducting informational talks with families, and in the presentation of food safety reports. Furthermore, it denounces that the 10% reduction in the dining hall price for siblings provided for in the offer would not have been applied.

This same center ended up terminating the contract with Can Arabí two years before its expiry. In an email sent to families after the closure of the central kitchen became known, the management informed that the dining service until the end of the school year would remain in the hands of the company Maria Magdalena Bonnín. For the upcoming school years, management will pass to Ses Maduixetes Càtering.

The precautionary closure of Can Arabí arrives in the final stretch of the school year and leaves open an administrative investigation that will have to clarify the scope of the irregularities detected and the possible consequences. Meanwhile, the dining service has remained active with alternative solutions since the day after the closure, in an emergency operation that has highlighted the dependence of the educational system on a small number of large providers.