The Feeding the Future Network called on Wednesday for a guarantee of the right to a healthy lunch for secondary school students in Mallorca, proposing that all schools be required to offer a set lunch menu. Currently, one in four students eats lunch alone, and of the 40 schools, only one has a cafeteria and seven offer a set lunch menu, according to the report. Secondary school cafeterias as lunchtime spaces - Recommendations for transformation into healthy, sustainable and educational spacesThe authors of the study—the Federation of Parents' Associations (FAPA) of Mallorca, the Balearic Islands College of Dietitians-Nutritionists, and the Global Health research group at the University of the Balearic Islands—are calling for the implementation of school cafeterias in secondary schools where the need is identified. According to the study, 92% of students eat at home; one in four eats alone, and 30% of those who eat alone consume pre-cooked meals or sandwiches. Only one secondary school in Mallorca has a school cafeteria, and the six Integrated Primary and Secondary Education Centers (CEIPIESO) and three Secondary Education Institutes (IES) are authorized to allow students to eat at the cafeteria of the school to which they are affiliated. In addition, there are 68 secondary schools with cafeteria service, but only 40% cover lunchtime and most close at 2 pm.

The Balearic education system concentrates school cafeterias in the hands of a small number of companies, a reality that highlights the inequality in service management and hinders the survival of family-run businesses and independent kitchens. According to recent data from the Ministry of Education, 212 public schools have cafeteria services, which depend primarily on external managers. Three companies—Restaurante Can Arabí, Catering S'Olivera, and Comensales Comedores Escolares—manage 107 schools, more than half the total. Other companies such as Julio Tundidor Molina, Diver Migjorn, and Menudixm also manage several cafeterias, while small businesses have a very small and declining presence, at a time when the prices of food products and raw materials, as well as general costs, are rising, making it extremely difficult to compete with large companies for contracts, as they complain. Only eight companies or self-employed cooks manage a single cafeteria each, highlighting the sector's imbalance. On the other hand, the case of Catering S'Olivera is particularly illustrative of the oligopoly in school food services: it controls 32 of the 38 school cafeterias in Ibiza, that is, 84.2% of the total.

The CCOO Teaching Federation in the Balearic Islands has urged the Government to extend the school lunch service up to the 4th year of ESO (Compulsory Secondary Education) to guarantee, at a minimum, one meal a day for all students. The union also demands that, in the 0-2 age group, the ratios be one educator for every four or five children. These demands come after the Ministry of Education and Universities presented the draft of the new decree that will regulate school cafeterias, a document that will be taken to the Participation Committee next week. In a statement, CCOO expressed its "outright rejection" of the Government's proposal, which it considers "unfeasible, disconnected from the educational reality, and failing to incorporate the demands of the sector, unions, social organizations, and families." The union also regrets that the Regional Ministry did not consult "the sector's largest union" and that the text was drafted "without regard for the needs" of the workers.