The future looks healthy
How cashless payment solutions can improve your pupils health

Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire, 3 March 2008 – With a health survey for England stating that unless immediate action is taken 50% of our nation’s children will be classified as obese by 2020, now, more than ever, the pressure is on for parents and schools to encourage a healthier diet and lifestyle. The increasing availability of healthy school meals and the support of parents to encourage a healthier diet is an easy step in the right direction. Ensuring pupils listen and adapt these new lifestyle decisions proves more difficult.

Cashless payment systems offer a solution for schools to record school meal uptake and for parents to ensure their children are eating a healthy diet. Parents load the child’s individual payment card with cash which is then used to pay for onsite school meals. The card can be loaded, by parents, with a daily spend limit and allows the option to exclude specific food groups (i.e. bar all meals containing fried food), giving parents greater control over their child’s diet.

More schools and academies are adopting cashless payment systems to eliminate the need for cash onsite, reduce canteen waiting times and offer a single card solution to reduce administration and costs.

Gary Heath of G2IS, a leading cashless payment systems provider said “There is an ever growing demand from academies, especially now parents can control the daily spend on the card and ensure their money actually reaches school. The schools also find great benefit through resource and cash handling savings.”

The need to adapt a healthier culture does not look like its going to fade away soon. Reports such as that by the recent British Medical Association on adolescent obesity stated the negative effect on psychological wellbeing and reinforces the requirement to bring about positive changes for the benefit of future generations.

About G2IS

G2IS is the UK market leader in providing cashless payment and payment processing solutions in a number of significant and demanding environments including: financial services, retail, higher education, further education, industrial, leisure, and professional services. Customers both large and small make up an estimated cardholder population exceeding 2 million. G2IS systems are supported by a rapidly growing national field engineering division, providing services to 650 customers, on over 1750 sites. G2IS is part of G4Tec, one of the foremost innovators and suppliers within the security industry that has over 30 years of experience designing, developing and manufacturing powerful, state-of-the-art electronic security solutions, bringing together the expertise and knowledge required to meet the needs of some of the worlds most secure environments.