A good day for school food, but will be even better when standards mandatory for all schools

Children’s Food Campaign’s response to the publication of the new revised school food standards

The Children’s Food Campaign is pleased that mandatory school food standards, newly revised and published today, are at the heart of the positive initiatives on school food, including universal infant free school meals and cooking and food education back onto the curriculum, which will be introduced from September.

These standards will continue to give parents some confidence that their child’s school meals – and indeed food provided throughout the school day – will be nutritious and free from the unhealthy snacks so heavily sold and promoted beyond the school gates.

There is much to celebrate within the revised standards: they will continue to ensure that school food is low in added sugar and saturated fat intake, and for the first time reference sustainable food. In particular the accompanying guidance encourages schools and their caterers to use sustainable fish, Fairtrade products, local and seasonable food, including ultra-local food grown on school grounds. This is a reflection of the strength of the campaign that the Children’s Food Campaign and its Sustain partners, The Campaign for Better Hospital Food and Sustainable Fish Cities, have run to ensure ethical and environmental standards are included in all public sector food procurement.

However, standards will only ever be as good as their implementation and monitoring. We await the Department for Education's publication of plans for how the new standards will be monitored. The DfE has also still not closed the legal loophole which means that the standards are not compulsory for the over 3,000 existing academies that were created between June 2010 and May 2014. In lieu of a change in the legislation – which we hope political parties will advocate in their manifestos – the DfE should be increasing its efforts to encourage academies to voluntarily sign up and to properly monitor standards in all schools.

We look to the School Food Plan to incorporate these new food standards more fully into the whole school food approach: encouraging schools to use the standards as a guide for what should be taught on the curriculum, to further reduce children’s sugar consumption in light of new government guidance due shortly, and to encourage healthier food to be served at fundraising events. 

Save Our School Food Standards campaign

Stephanie Wood, from the Save our School Food Standards campaign, also comments:

"We welcome this clear and concise set of standards, together with the guidance notes, to help schools and caterers deliver nutritious and delicious school meals. We believe that mandatory standards are vital to ensure that school meals provide children with the energy and nutrition. We will continue to work with the School Food Plan and others to champion standards across all schools, including those academies where legislation is currently not in place."

The Save Our School Food Standards campaign was launched in February 2012. It calls for academies and free schools to be required to comply with the same mandatory standards for school food currently safeguarding the quality of food available in maintained schools. The campaign represents a coalition of support for the standards, led by the Jamie Oliver Food Foundation, Children's Food Campaign, Food fo Life Partnership and School Food Matters.

For further information, see www.sustainweb.org/childrensfoodcampaign/school_food_standards