Castiglione School Canteens Delay Ends with New Kitchen Opening in October
Starting at the end of October, the new kitchen for the Castiglione school canteens will begin operations. This was announced by the Education Councillor, Giuseppe Bertoli, who explained the reasons for the delay in launching the service.
“The issue is related to legal matters,” he clarified. “The company that won the tender produced a false self-certification, so the contract was awarded to the second-place bidder. Then there were appeals to the TAR (Regional Administrative Court) and the Court of State, until the decision was made to assign the service to the company initially placed second in the ranking.” This was a complex situation, but it now appears to be resolved.
Installation and management of the new meal center
The company responsible for cooking and distributing food to all Castiglione’s schools has sixty days to install the equipment at the industrial zone site. Since the contract was awarded at the beginning of September, everything should be ready by the end of next month.
While waiting for the full operation of the new meal production center, valued at 1 billion euros, the kitchen remains at the Cesare Battisti elementary school, located in Viale Maifreni. “I understand the difficulties of working in the old facility,” commented the councillor, “but this delay was certainly not desired by the municipal administration. We have prepared a five-year European tender worth 5 billion euros for a state-of-the-art facility—not only in the provincial area—that will produce high-quality meals and provide distribution services.”
Future service start and construction at the kindergarten
“Of course, we would have preferred the entire process to begin with the start of the school year,” Bertoli clarified. “In fact, by the end of May, we would have been ready to select the company. However, legal issues slowed down the procedures, forcing us to postpone after the summer.” Therefore, the service at the new location will start at the end of October, with the subsequent inauguration of the meal production center, which was planned at the beginning of the current legislative period.
Another ribbon-cutting is expected soon at the kindergarten built in the San Pietro area. The children are already attending the new building, but some external finishing works are still pending. Once completed, the official inauguration of the kindergarten for early childhood education will take place.