The owner of Davison’s has criticised the decision to completely remove ice cream from school menus.
Primary school students, occasionally, would get ice cream as part of the menu, but that has now ended with the new menu rolled out for the new school year.
Writing on Facebook, Greig Davison asked “I wonder how many MHK’s will now stop eating our ice cream 
after they voted to remove it from the new school menus (where it’s been an option for 15+ years)”?
Mr Davison said this is because ice cream is “now deemed it as an ultra high processed food because it has to go through a pasteurisation process, to kill off any bacteria in the product, and a freezing process to make it into ice cream”.
He added: “Before anyone mutters high in sugars, our product is actually quite low in sugar for an ice cream and over 70% of it is made up of milk and cream which apparently must be good for kids seen as the new menu has it as the dessert option.”
The ice cream supremo said that schools use around 6,000 litres of ice cream a year, which “isn’t a huge amount in the grand scheme of things”.
Process not Processed
However, he added that “taking away products that they now deem as highly processed, because they have to go through a process to be produced, is just mad as it’ll lead to a lot of hungry children”.
“Good luck teachers as I know what my 2 are like when they’re hangry.”
The post received significant support from parents who, while appreciating the need for a healthy menu in schools, said their children should be given the choice for an occasional ice cream.
Others also criticised the lack of Manx products, now set to make up just less than 25% of the menu, up from 6.2%.
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