The Children’s Food Campaign welcomes the survey carried out by LACORS into the standard of food served to children in UK nurseries, but is concerned that the report’s recommendations do not go far enough.

Campaign Co-coordinator Christine Haigh said:
“We absolutely agree that nurseries need guidance so that they are clear about what sort of food must be served to meet the nutritional needs of young children.  However, we are concerned that without legal standards, once this guidance has been made available, some nurseries might feel able to cut corners – particularly if they are a private businesses, in competition with another private nursery provider.  We fear this would compromise the health of our youngest children.”

She continued:
“The lesson we’ve learnt from Jamie Oliver’s campaign is that regulation is needed to ensure that every child gets the healthy meals that they deserve.  Nurseries are already inspected by Ofsted, so it would be simple to check that the food that they are serving is meeting any legal standards.”

The Children’s Food Campaign is supporting the Soil Association’s Better Nursery Food Now campaign, which is calling for legal standards for nursery food.

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For further information please contact Christine Haigh or Alex Jackson on 020 7827 1228.

Notes to editors:

1)     The Children's Food Campaign wants to improve children's health and well-being through better food - and food teaching - in schools, and protecting children from junk food marketing. We are supported by over 300 organisations, almost 300 MPs and 12,000 members of the public. The Children's Food Campaign is coordinated by Sustain: the alliance for better food and farming and funded by the British Heart Foundation. For more information please go to: http://www.sustainweb.org/childrensfoodcampaign