IT could be the finest pasta from Italy or sauerkraut from Germany.

Instead, it is local produce that is being served up every day for the thousands of youngsters enjoying school dinners in Huddersfield.

Kirklees Council's in-house catering service has won the contract to provide school meals, despite a ruling that all authorities must advertise across Europe.

Advertisements for Kirklees have to be placed in European magazines, but, as yet, no firm in any other European Union country has won a tender.

School meals were criticised in a report by the Soil Association this month. It found that council caterers spent about 35p per day on ingredients for school meals, whereas the prison service spent roughly double on lunch for prisoners.

School dinners cost £1.30 in Kirklees.

Stephan Brown, head of catering services at Kirklees, said 95% of school dinners in the area were prepared by the Kirklees Catering Service.

The service provides dinners in the 20 schools maintained by the Jarvis company under the Private Finance Initiative and most other schools in Kirklees.

Mr Brown said schools decided who they wanted to provide their meals.

"They have the right to produce them themselves in-house, they can get us to do it or they can go to the private sector," he said.

"We have gone out against the private sector and have won a lot more contracts than we have lost."

Mr Brown said that after the service won a contract, sub-contractors supplied the raw ingredients.

"We are in the process of re-advertising the frozen food and meat contracts and the supply of halal food in the next 12 months," he added.

"We have to sub-contract; that's where EU legislation comes in and that tender has to be advertised.

"But I have never seen a German or French company supply us. It tends to be big UK national firms."

Mr Brown said there had been difficulty with smaller firms being able to produce food consistently.

"While the raw ingredients may be 35p each meal, overheads have to be taken into account and certain standards specified by the schools, such as hygiene and nutritional value."

Mr Brown said the catering service could supply steak every day if schools asked him to.

But obviously the cost would increase and schools were unsure that pupils would pay a higher price.

"Schools tend to be reluctant to do that," he said.

Alternatively, money could come out of the school budget, which would mean less spent on staff and books.

"It is a balancing act," added Mr Brown.