BARVEN: Not all up to vendors

President of the Barbados Association of Retailers, Vendors and Entrepreneurs (BARVEN), Alistair Alexander, is throwing the organisation’s support behind the new School Nutrition Policy, but he cautions against placing the full burden of providing healthy foods and snacks to children squarely at vendors’ feet.
Alexander, who spoke to Barbados TODAY at the conclusion of talks between teachers, Chief Education Officer, Dr Ramona Archer- Bradshaw and representatives from the Heart and Stroke Foundation, the Diabetes and Hypertensive Association and others at the Wildey Gymnasium on Monday, said that while the association fully supports the ministry’s new initiative, its success is not only up to school vendors.
“They called in BARVEN and they ran seminars for the vendors to sensitise them to how important the nutritional programme is. As we say in BARVEN, we put Barbados first, but while I say that, the burden cannot be on the vendor.
“You are talking about those importers and such like too. The burden also has to be on them when it comes to snacks that would not be appropriate healthwise for children,” he explained.
Though Alexander admitted that some vendors would be apprehensive about the upcoming changes, which will ban from school premises the sale of food and snacks with high salt and sugar content, he suggested that the move should be seen as a necessary one.
“You can’t wholesale oppose a good thing or something that is important. You would understand that the children are our future and we would want a healthy future for them. You have to balance it…BARVEN would definitely be monitoring it and if it is undue hardship to the vendors, if too much burden is on the vendors, obviously we would push back.”
The School Nutrition Policy was developed as a multisectoral effort aimed at creating a healthy educational environment for students in light of the high number of Barbadian children suffering with noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), with 31 per cent of children currently being considered overweight or obese.
The policy was approved by the government in May, 2022 and then launched in a phased manner last February.
(SB)