On September 12 and 18, 2025, the Public Defender of Georgia, Levan Ioseliani, visited soup kitchens in Samgori and Gldani districts of Tbilisi, as well as in Khashuri, checked the general situation there, including sanitary and hygienic conditions, and spoke with beneficiaries.

Access to the adequate standard of living, including the right to food, is a fundamental human right, which is a necessary prerequisite for a dignified existence and health protection. The free meal programne of Georgia, which is currently underway in the municipalities, provides food services to socially vulnerable families. The Public Defender regularly inspects and assesses the situation in the mentioned facilities.

As a result of the aforementioned monitoring and visits, the Public Defender, similar to the monitoring conducted in previous years (https://shorturl.at/4HAhZ ), again identified a number of systemic problems that require effective response measures in order to ensure the improvement of the quality of service and the protection of the beneficiaries’ rights. Namely:

• There is still no unified standard for the management and provision of free meal services in the country. The amount of food, calorie content, infrastructure and hygiene requirements are determined in different ways in the municipalities;
• The individual nutritional needs of beneficiaries are not taken into account: the menu depends only on the budget, energy value and health or age factors are ignored, specialists are almost not involved in the process, and the menu often remains unchanged for years;
• In some municipalities, there is no additional list, which is why new beneficiaries are given the opportunity to receive the service only if someone is excluded from the main list.

These challenges demonstrate that it is necessary for the Government of Georgia to develop and approve minimum standards for free meal services, while municipalities must ensure that local needs are studied and appropriate financial resources are found to ensure affordable and quality meals for beneficiaries.