Only one in three school buildings in Italy is equipped with a dining hall. This information comes from data released by Cittadinanzattiva in the VII Survey on School Canteens. However, canteens are not uniformly distributed across the country.
In the southern regions, in fact, only 22% of schools have a canteen, in the Islands just 21%: the figure drops further in Campania (15.6%) and Sicily (13.7%). In the Centre and North, however, the percentage of school canteens is significantly higher: 41% and 43% respectively.
The region with the highest number of canteens is Valle d'Aosta (72%), followed by Piedmont, Tuscany, and Liguria. To try to bridge this disparity, one of the goals set by the PNRR is the creation of about 1,000 school canteens. However, researchers note, the few available data on the progress of the work show a significant delay in this funding area, so the availability of new facilities will only start from the second half of 2026.
The Pangi (National Action Plan for the Implementation of the Guarantee for Children) indicates the school canteen service as one of the most important to prevent the social exclusion of minors. Having a school canteen is fundamental in the fight against educational and food poverty, allowing all students to access healthy and balanced meals regardless of the territorial, economic, and organizational possibilities of their families of origin. The quality of the service is, in this sense, decisive.
As specified by Adriana Bizzari, national coordinator of Cittadinanzattiva's School department: «The Parliamentary Commission for Childhood and Adolescence, together with all the interested stakeholders including users, should start an investigative survey to identify a plan of interventions on aspects such as: quality and cost of food supplies, supply chain, adherence to menus, role of Canteen Commissions, tariff concessions, procurement system, working conditions of the staff, respect for CAMs, monitoring of public programs for organic canteens and fruit and vegetable at school, projects for correct nutrition education».
85 euros is the average monthly expense faced by a family in Campania for the canteen in the current school year - an increase of over 4% - in line with the approximately 85 euros (just over 4 euros per meal) of the national average. This is what emerges from the VII Survey on School Canteens, with which Cittadinanzattiva examined the rates of all 110 provincial capitals for both kindergarten and primary school. A third of the school buildings, that is 13,533 out of 40,160, are equipped with a dining hall.
The distribution, however, is not homogeneous, as in the Southern Regions just over one in five buildings has a school canteen (in the Centre it is 41% and in the North 43%) and the share drops to 15.6% in Campania and 13.7% in Sicily. As for kindergarten and primary school, in Avellino the monthly cost is 91 euros, in Benevento 80 euros, in Caserta 86, in Naples 76, in Salerno 90 euros. In Campania, according to Cittadinanzattiva data, there are 543 canteens while 137 are those planned by the PNR and of these 51 are new constructions.