What was 2025's biggest gift to children’s food and health?

What a year 2025 has been for all of us who are passionate about every child's access to healthy and sustainable food!

2025 may not be defined by a single headline policy, but from the food on our shelves to the policies shaping our health system, children’s health can no longer be treated as an afterthought.

Across schools, early years settings, and the wider food environment, policy and campaigning alike pushed toward a preventative, universal, and system-wide approach, framing access to healthy food not simply as an optional benefit, but as a cornerstone of public health and educational equity.

Policy changes in 2025 did not emerge in a vacuum. Throughout the year, Sustain and its partners kept children’s nutrition and food security impossible to ignore, demonstrating how persistent advocacy can drive real change.

Reflecting on the year, Sustain's Chief Executive Kath Dalmeny says:

“How a nation nourishes its children feels like a fundamental measure of our common values.

"This year, we have seen heartening shifts in national policy to ensure that children eat well, from the extension of free school meals to all children in households on Universal Credit, lifting of the two-child benefits cap, and commitment to local authority Crisis Resilience Fund to help people weather difficult times, to the promise of a review of school food standards.

"These policy measures have not solved food poverty, but do help lift the pressure on households and communities, so we can focus more attention on the essential business of improving our food system for everyone’s health, community connections, restoration of nature and a stable climate.” 

Breaking through on healthy school food for all

In 2025, we made the case for universal school meals louder and clearer than ever. In March, as part of the School Food Review coalition which is backed by Impact on Urban Health, we launched the Superpowers of School Food, calling on government to Feed the Future and extend access to healthy school food. The government’s decision in June 2025 to expand free school meal eligibility to all children from families in receipt of Universal Credit, the start of primary school breakfast clubs, extension of Holiday Activities and Food Programme for three more years, plus the launch of a review of School Food Standards show that this growing body of evidence and the voices behind it are being heard loud and clear in the government.

Nikita Sinclair, Head of Children's Food and Health at Impact on Urban Health says:

"Our children’s food highlight for 2025 has got to be securing extended access to FSM to all children in households in receipt of Universal Credit and an update to the school food standards. This is the culmination of years of collaborative work by so many fantastic partners – and is such a significant step towards our mission for all children to have the nutritious, affordable food they need to thrive.” 

Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on School Food, Sharon Hodgson MP says:

“Thanks to the tireless work of the members of the Children's Food Campaign and many others, we have had some massive wins this year in Children's Food. These range from the unprecedented expansion to free school meals, which will support an additional 500,000 children with a hot, healthy, and nutritious meal, to bolstering the breakfast club programme, increasing funding by an average of 20%.” 

Shona Goudie, Head of Policy and Advocacy at the Food Foundation :

“This was a major victory after years of campaigning by the Feed the Future campaign, including the tireless activism of Young Food Ambassadors from around the UK who shared from their own experiences the impact of the restrictive free school meal threshold on young people’s education, health and wellbeing. Coupled with the announcement to review the School Food Standards in England, this change was a breakthrough moment for ensuring every child has the chance to grow up well nourished.” 

At Sustain, we have also made the case for ensuring uplifts in eligibility for free school meals and changes to the quality of food on the plate also benefit local, British and sustainable farming. Our Follow the Carrot report with Bremner & Co brought together school food, catering and wholesalers and farming networks to discuss the opportunities, and showed that universal expansion could deliver 540 million extra meals a year and unlock £600 million for UK farmers and growers.

London's 100 million meal milestone

London reached a landmark achievement in its commitment to children’s wellbeing, with more than 100 million free school meals delivered to pupils in state-funded primary schools since the launch of the Mayor’s universal meals programme in 2023.

Marking this milestone, Mayor of London Sir Sadiq Khan said:

“I’m absolutely delighted that 100 million meals have now been provided to children across London’s state primary schools. I know from personal experience what a difference these meals make, so to be able to ensure that hundreds of thousands of children are receiving them across London every single day brings huge personal pride.

"I’ll continue to fund this unprecedented programme for as long as I am Mayor and support our next generation, as we build a fairer and better London for everyone.”

The expansion of breakfast clubs

In April 2025, the government funded the first 750 early adopter primary schools to provide free, 30-minute clubs to all pupils, testing the model before a wider national rollout in 2026.

This was the undoubted highlight for Sustain member Magic Breakfast, whose Campaigns Manager Katharine Voss says:

“This year saw encouraging progress on government-funded school breakfasts. The Early Adopters Scheme launched in 750 primary schools, helping more children start the day ready to learn and easing pressure on families. The Autumn Budget brought continued support for NSBP secondary pupils and increased funding for the rollout of free breakfast clubs. While there’s more to do, it’s positive to see sector evidence – including ours – shaping policy that supports children and schools.” 

The programme will continue to expand over the coming year with another 500 schools due to join in April 2026, and 1500 in September 2026 - the government pledges to reach all primary schools by the end of this Parliament. However, when four new partners were unveiled to support the new primary school breakfast programme, with deals for schools to draw on, we sounded a note of caution to ensure these do not exclude local, community approaches or create new commercial sponsorship conflicts of interest. 

Protecting children from less healthy products

The latest data on childhood obesity continues to show worrying trends, giving urgency to measures to reduce exposure to unhealthy food, and increase access to healthier options. Key to this is incentivising the food industry to reformulate and put health at the heart of new product development. 

The need for a healthier food industry has been solidly recognised in the outcomes announced as part of the Food Strategy as well as the new Healthy Food Standard launched through the 10 Year Health Plan.

Not for children

2025 was the year that the long overdue ban on sales of high-caffeine energy drinks to children finally moved forward again. This has been a long-standing public health concern, and one that united teachers, parents, public health and dental experts. Initially proposed as a ban on sales to under-16s, the consultation during the autumn opened up debate around the appropriate age limit. Sustain conducted public polling and consulted with parents, teaching organisations, and health bodies and together are pushing the government to raise this to 18, just like Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Hungary and Estonia have already done. Together we identified eight compelling reasons why these drinks should only be sold to adults.

Changing the recipe

In another campaign win for our Recipe for Change coalition, the government has announced the Soft Drinks Industry Levy (SDIL) is being extended to include previously exempt sugary milkshakes, alongside a lower sugar threshold across all included drinks. Whilst not everything we had called for, and still only focussed on pre-packaged soft drinks, and not the wider food sector, the strengthening of this measure is testimony to its success in triggering reformulation and sugar reduction, whilst also contributing revenues to support investment in children's health.

Katharine Jenner, Director of the Obesity Health Alliance says:

“The Soft Drinks Industry Levy being wrapped up with a nice big bow - ending the exemption for sugary milk-based drinks and lowering the threshold at which it applies, is recognition that the levy model works, and that it can go further to improve child health.” 

However our Recipe for Change campaign also continued to make the case for wider reformulation and a healthier food industry, in a range of submissions to budget and spending reviews, participation in the Health Select Committee inquiry on healthy food and weight management, and new peer-led research with young people in South London.

Kate Howard, Recipe for Change Campaign Co-ordinator says: 

"We’ve had an exciting year for Recipe for Change. Alongside a major policy win with SDIL being strengthened, and a brilliant panel at Labour Party Conference with Minister Ashley Dalton MP, my personal highlight was running a taste-testing experiment with young people to see if they could tell the difference between similar snacks with very different levels of salt and sugar.

Spoiler alert: it was often hard to tell, and the healthier options were frequently their favourites too! This real-world test brings to life our report which exposes just how wide sugar and salt ranges are across commonly eaten snacks. So why are companies still flooding our food with unhealthy ingredients? They absolutely can, and should, be doing better!"

The government has launched work on a Healthy Food Standard as part of the new 10 Year Health Plan announced in July 2025. This aims to mobilise a healthier food industry through mandatory reporting on health, and potentially a new set of targets. 

In short, 2025 was a year that our message came through loud and clear: if we want a fairer, healthier future, companies need to change the recipe.

Early Years feeding in the spotlight (finally!)

Another key theme of 2025 was the growing emphasis on the importance of early intervention, which has often been dubbed the "baby blind spot" in government policy.

A BBC Panorama documentary about baby food pouches put the issues fully into the public and political spotlight, underpinned by groundbreaking research from the University of Leeds, including parent surveys supported by Sustain. These very clearly exposed the poor nutritional content and misleading marketing claims made by product manufacturers, and the urgent need for better regulation in the baby food aisles.

Children's Food Campaign and Obesity Health Alliance members together called on MPs and government to stand up for healthy baby foods because every baby and toddler deserves the best, healthiest start in life.

A significant breakthrough in 2025 came with publication of the updated voluntary guidance for baby and toddler food manufacturers, putting them on 18 months' notice to improve their recipes and remove misleading marketing claims. 

Dr Vicky Sibson, Chief Executive of First Steps Nutrition Trust, which has been at the forefront of calling for policy change, says: 

“My highlight of 2025 is the Department for Health and Social Care's (voluntary) guidelines for the baby food industry, which are putting them on watch to clean up their act. We've known for a long time that the composition of shop-bought baby foods is largely poor (sugar being the main problem) and that despite this companies get away with marketing them as healthy good choices. The Government guidelines set the clock ticking to (slowly) start to turn this around - better late than never.” 

Smaller but significant progress also came with the updating of guidance for early years education settings, highlighting the role of childcare environments in shaping lifelong eating habits.

We also welcomed a small uplift in value of Healthy Start payments announced in the Comprehensive Spending Review. Although challenges remain around eligibility, uptake and adequacy, commitments to improve Healthy Startsignalled recognition that the earliest years represent a critical window for reducing health inequalities before they become entrenched.

Changing the food environment 

It was a mixed year in relation to progress on unhealthy food marketing and promotion, with clear evidence of intense industry lobbying designed to delay, dilute and distort government policies.

However there were still a few notable highlights.

In October, the long-awaited multi-buy promotions in England on unhealthy products came into force, having been delayed under both the previous and current governments. New research from the University of Leeds revealed how location promotions restrictions have led to an estimated 2 million fewer HFSS products per day being sold, but also called for further strengthening and enforcement.

Early concerns that planned TV and online advertising restrictions could be weakened prompted strong intervention from Sustain and partners, helping to push regulators toward a stronger approach. Yet continued delays and industry pressure meant children were still exposed to relentless marketing of unhealthy food, with meaningful protections repeatedly postponed. We now look ahead to the Less Healthy Advertising Restrictions coming into force on 5 January 2026.

In much better news, 2025 saw growing momentum at local level for action. Since 2019, 25 local governments, alongside Transport for London, have worked with Sustain to introduce robust healthier food advertising policies across their advertising estates, showing what is possible when political will is matched with action. 

Joining the dots: poverty and food insecurity

2025 was the year that we started to see the government joining the dots between departments - including through the Food Strategy and its 10 outcomes, and the work on the Child Poverty Strategy across the Cabinet Office, DWP, Department for Education and Treasury.

The long-standing campaign to lift the two-child limit on benefits under Universal Credit was a mammoth effort across a huge swathe of anti-poverty, social mobility, children's charities and food organisations allike - and was increasingly backed by Parliamentarians. The final breakthrough came in the Autumn Budget - a moment of shared relief and joy for many of our members.

Isabel Rice, Food Poverty Co-ordinator at Sustain says:

“We at Sustain are delighted at the announcement that the two-child benefit cap will be fully scrapped, as we were among the many organisations campaigning for this key policy change to lift Cchildren out of poverty. We know that households with children are more likely to experience food insecurity and struggle to provide nutritious meals for their family - this announcement will certainly have a positive impact on this by putting more money into pockets.” 

Mari Burton, National Campaign Manager, National Education Union says:

“The abolition of the cruel two child limit was an absolutely AMAZING moment for 2025 - and one that so many of us have been working so hard for such a long time! Not only will this have a very real and practical impact of so many families, it's a start to breaking down the awful stereotyping and stigmatisation ushered in by the former government, which does such damage to both individuals and wider society.” 

Bringing it all together

Collaboration is at the heart of everything we do at the Children's Food Campaign. Our 2025 Children’s Food Summit, was a truly uplifting and joyful occasion that brought together campaigners, parents, health professionals, local authorities, parliamentarians, educators and young people to focus on what we need to do together for greater impact on children's healthy food.

The Summit, alongside the Children’s Food Awards, celebrated practical leadership while also making a broader statement: that good children’s food policy must be ambitious, joined up and informed by lived experience.

Our ‘2025 Yummy and Yucky awards’ added fun and celebration for people going the extra mile in their campaigning, and also expose the growing public concern on the way baby and toddler brands were involved in health-washing, high levels of sugar and inappropriate marketing practices. 

Winner of our Championing Equality, Diversity and Inclusion in Children's Food award, Leicester Mammas reflects:

"Certainly receiving the Children's Food Award was a huge highlight for Leicester Mammas. We also became a CIO - Charitable Incorporated Organisation - in September, which was a great achievement. In 2025 we have expanded our Mammas Pathways activities to offer a range of activities and projects to support and improve outcomes for babies and mothers during the First 1001 Critical Days."

Children's Food Campaign Manager Barbara Crowther says:

"The Children's Food Summit and Awards gave 2025 a real buzz of energy and a shared mission that set the tone for the whole year.

"As I look back on the incredible year that 2025 has been, and all the small and big wins we've achieved together with our partners, I am so grateful for all the brilliant people that were in the room that day, who bring such expertise, creativity, pragmatism and generosity to our shared campaigning. 

"Together we are stronger than any one organisation working alone. That is the magic of our network and partners, winning change for children through collaborative campaigning."

What's in store for 2026?

Whilst 2025 was a year of real progress for children’s food and health, the job is far from done.

The gains of 2025 must be protected and built upon from building towards universal school meals and robust school food standards, to ensuring children are fully protected from unhealthy marketing and supported from their earliest years.

As the government’s 10 Year Health Plan, Food Strategy and Child Poverty Strategy takes shape, children’s food must remain at the heart of efforts to prevent poor health and tackle inequality.

Keep an eye out for Part Two of this blog in January, where we explore with our partners the New Years resolutions they would like to see the government and food companies make to improve children’s healthy food.