Bananas are no longer being given to school children as part of an initiative to encourage them to eat fruit after several complaints made by parents, Education Minister Evarist Bartolo said.

Approached by The Malta Independent today, Bartolo said it was easy to see that complaints were being received only when bananas were distributed.

“When there are no bananas we had no complaints,” he said.

When bananas are prepared with other fruit a day before it is distributed, by the following morning the chemical reaction of the banana and the squeezed lemon juice would have changed the colour and makes the produce look terrible.

“All the (terrible) pictures I have seen all have pieces of banana,” he said, and so bananas will no longer be distributed.

Recently, numerous parents have taken to social media to complain about the School Fruit Scheme, which, instead of promoting healthy fruit and vegetable consumption, is only increasing waste, as children refuse to eat the fruit provided.

Pictures of darkened, squashed or over-ripened fruit have circulated the internet and parents have complained about their children not eating the fruit provided.