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The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the effects of ageing on food choice according to Portuguese elderly narratives within an eight‐country research project, the Food in Later Life (www.foodinlaterlife.org).

The project was organized into eight interrelated but independent work packages (WPs) using semi‐structured interviews, structured questionnaires and food diaries. Each interview took approximately one hour and was complemented by a background questionnaire (SF36) and seven day food diaries (shopping and consumption). The data from the interviews were transcribed and analysed using MaxQDA. Data from the Portuguese sample are presented and complemented by the eight country samples in the case of meal patterns, functional and convenience products. The sentences used to illustrate the memories of older people are quoted.

Health problems and physiological restraints along with social changes, loss of a partner and/or loneliness were identified as major factors behind the elderly food choice. Functional and convenience products are still not familiar to the elderly in Europe.

More research on determinants of healthy ageing, especially in what concerns foods, and satisfaction with food, is required since efficient policies are needed to enable older populations to maintain their independence and a good satisfaction with food‐related life.

This cross‐cultural qualitative research provides important information about elderly food choice and the factors behind that choice.

A key strategy in the policy of saw millers and artisanal millers supplying the domestic market with legal and sustainable lumber is the transformation of chainsaw operators into legal artisanal millers to stop the production of illegal timber and supply only authorized wood to local trade points. The challenge, however, is how to develop the concept of its viability and acceptability to the chainsaw operators. Specifically, existing and potential investors’ knowledge about the possible costs and revenue is non-existent. This study aims to examine the financial and economic viability of the artisanal timber milling (ATM) business in rural Ghana.

Using data from three operational artisanal milling companies in Ghana, net present value, internal rate of return, profitability index and payback period were used in analyzing the viability of artisanal timber milling.

The results showed that the ATM business is financially and economically viable, attractive and profitable.

ATM business has the potential to create more jobs in the timber industry, reduce illegalities in the forestry sector and improve the living standard of individuals used by the sector.

As part of ATM’s medium and long-term strategies, the study encourages stakeholders to consider assisting existing and potential actors who have the passion to venture into this business to acquire concessions and financial support from financial institutions.

This paper aims to describe free school meals with respect to a plate model and to analyse how the meals were chosen by pupils at Finnish comprehensive schools.

The paper reviews the history of the Finnish school catering system and free school meals. It also briefly analyses theoretical approaches to school meals and introduces a plate model based on national nutritional recommendations. The empirical data were collected in 2003 by the second author of this paper. In total, 3,041 pupils returned the questionnaire from ten comprehensive schools. Data from the pupils' school meal choices were analysed using one‐way ANOVA and F‐tests.

The findings indicate that there were significant differences in the chosen school meals between boys and girls, between classes, and between schools. Thus, the plate model has not been followed when choosing the free school meals.

This paper has, for example, the following implication: school meals should not be considered with respect to food only, but should be viewed from a broader perspective, namely that of pupils' needs and wants.

School meals have previously been studied with multiple theoretical approaches. The authors believe that the broader focus on pupils and their socio‐ecological environment will further increase understanding of their food choices in Finland.

This paper seeks to construct and describe a nutritionally balanced school meal model for a comprehensive school. The aim of the model is to illustrate an holistic view to school meals based on the pupils' needs.

The paper introduces Maslow's hierarchy of needs and eight theoretical views to school meals. The empirical data were collected in 2007 from the pupils (168), their parents (82) and the school officials (42) of four comprehensive schools in Finland by using a structured questionnaire which included open questions. Consequently, a description of a nutritionally balanced school meal model for a comprehensive school was constructed.

A constructed model for serving school meals consists of the following views: pupil's needs; nutrition, food choice and waste views; well‐being and energy; education; social‐ecological environment and school meal environment, as well as maintaining good health and preventing health problems. The model is structured according to the theoretical views as well as suggestions from the pupils, parents, and experts. Also the subjects responsible for the activities are included.

The constructed nutritionally balanced school meal model can be utilized as a standard model when serving school meals in a comprehensive school.

The model may act as a reference model for the school catering organisations and the school officials when decisions related to school meals are made.

The purpose of this paper is to test nine hypotheses whether pupils follow a plate model when they choose their school meals at Finnish comprehensive schools.

The paper introduces nine theoretical cviews to school meals and a plate model. The empirical data were collected in 2007 from four comprehensive schools in Finland. The nine hypotheses utilizing data from 168 pupils’ self‐reported school meal choices are tested by using Spearman's rank correlation coefficient.

In total, six hypotheses are accepted and three are rejected. The findings indicate that the pupils partially follow the plate model when they choose their school meals.

This paper has the following implication. We have to further increase the pupils’ knowledge on school meals and its role to maintain good health and prevent health problems, as well as nutrition information related to food choices.

In the previous research school meals have been studied from multiple theoretical views. This paper suggests that a broader theoretical focus on the pupils will further increase understanding of their food choices.

Maslow's hierarchy of needs is little used in research when analysing pupils’ needs, wants, and motivations related to food. To fill that gap, the purpose of this paper is to introduce the pupils’ suggestions for developing school meals in Finland from the viewpoint of Maslow's hierarchy.

Previous research on Maslow's hierarchy of needs, as well as pupils’ needs for school meals are briefly illustrated. The empirical qualitative data are collected from four comprehensive schools by using a sentence completion method.

The findings introduce pupils’ suggestions for developing school meals from the viewpoint of a plate model and its items linked with Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Most of the suggestions are related to physiological needs; i.e. main course, salad, milk and bread. Also other needs, such as safety needs, social needs, esteem needs, and self‐actualization needs receive suggestions.

The practical implications are that the pupils have all the five levels of needs related to school meals which have to be taken into consideration when developing school meals within the curriculum.

The paper is useful for all those whose concern it is to develop school meals.

The purpose of this paper is to explore and describe the self‐reported diet behaviour of pupils in four Finnish schools.

Overall, eight theoretical views on school meals are briefly illustrated. Empirical data were collected in 2007 from four comprehensive schools, where the school kitchen types were either a preparing kitchen or a heating kitchen. A total of 168 6th‐9th graders returned the questionnaire. The data were analysed by using factor and cluster analyses, one‐way Anova and F‐tests.

A total of six factors illustrating the dimensions of self‐reported school meal diet behaviour were found. They were titled as “learning”, “energy”, “economy”, “health”, “opposition to school meals”, and finally “impact of social‐ecological environment”. Based on the factor scores, the following two clusters emerged: “Pupils having a positive attitude towards school meals and learning” and “Impressionable pupils having a negative attitude towards school meals”.

The findings indicate that information on healthy eating habits and nutritional information – including the plate model – should be targeted, both to the pupils and the parents. Also, the pupils' favourite dishes could be served more often.

The study provides up‐to‐date, cross‐sectional structure on self‐reported diet behaviour of pupils based on eight theoretical views. The paper is useful for those who are interested in and concerned with pupils' diet behaviour.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the difference in students’ preferences on weekly menu of school mid-day meal (MDM) program in Uttar Pradesh, India.

The study is based on primary structured questionnaire survey through personal interviews using multi-stage stratified sampling technique. This comprehensive survey covered 2,400 primary and upper primary students belonging to eight districts of Uttar Pradesh – Allahabad, Balrampur, Gautam Buddh Nagar, Hathras, Kanpur Nagar, Mathura, Shahjahanpur and Varanasi. A total of 60 schools have been selected from each district, covering a total of 480 primary and upper primary schools. Simple statistical tools have been used to analyze the surveyed data such as cross-tabulation, percentage distribution and rank analysis. Further, six research hypotheses have been formulated to analyze the difference in school meal menu preferences among the students and χ2-statistics has been used to test the significance level of these hypotheses.

Survey results indicate that more than 90 percent students eat MDM in the school as per the weekly menu. Result of χ2-test indicates that choices on school meal menu among the students differ significantly across weekdays. Rice-pulses or rice-sambar served on Tuesday is reported to be the first preferred food of children given first preference by around 30 percent, followed by kadi-rice or kheer which is served on Wednesday. The results of χ2-tests exhibited a significant difference on weekly menu choices by gender, kitchen types, rural and urban locations and geographical regions. About 27 percent of the students reported that they want to have a change in the menu. When further probed about the kind of changes desired in the menu, puri-vegetables was found to be the most preferred choice of the respondents, beside halwa/kheer and rice with pulses/vegetables/kadi being the next preferred choices.

The present study provides managerial implications to the policy makers and scheme/program implementers for better understanding of the students’ preferences on school MDM weekly menu.

There are several evaluation studies undertaken by various agencies to assess the impact of MDM program on school attendance, retention and nutritional status of children. However, there are limited numbers of studies available, which have measured the students’ preferences on school MDM menu.

The purpose of this paper is to improve the recent models for the evaluation of the efficiency of decision making units (DMUs) comprising a network structure with undesirable intermediate measures and fuzzy data.

In this paper a three-stage network structure model with desirable and undesirable data is presented and is solved as linear triangular fuzzy planning problems.

A new three stage network data envelopment analysis (DEA) model is established to evaluate the efficiency of industries with undesirable and desirable indicators in fuzzy environment.

The implication of this study is to evaluate the furniture services and the chipboard industries of wood lumber as a three-stage process.

In some cases, DMUs include two or multi-stage process (series or parallel) operating with a structure called a network DEA. Also, in the real world problems, the data are often presented imprecisely. Additionally, the intermediate measures under the real-world conditions include desirable and undesirable data. These mentioned indexes show the value of the proposed model.

The purpose of this paper is to construct and describe a snack service model for a comprehensive school.

Empirical data were collected from the school officials and the pupils by using a focus group method in two comprehensive schools. Moreover, the food service managers of Espoo and Vantaa cities' catering services were theme interviewed. Consequently, a description of the snack service models was conducted and a snack service model for a comprehensive school was constructed.

A constructed model for serving snacks consists of eight elements: snack products; service process; customers; pricing; procurement of snacks; nutrition recommendations; in‐house control and interest groups.

The constructed snack service model can be utilized as a standard model when serving snacks in a comprehensive school.

The constructed model may act as a reference model for the school catering organisations and the school officials when decisions related to snacks serving are made.