New bread standards for schools

On 14 September 2026, the Department for Education (DfE) published the Government's response to the public consultation on new mandatory School Food Standards for England.

Sustain broadly welcomes the new standards. Barbara Crowther, manager of the Children's Food Campaign, said: 'These new standards reflect a major shift to healthier, more nutritionally balanced and climate friendly school food, and represent a big boost for both pupil and planetary health.'

The breadlines

The Government's response outlines that, from September 2027, bread and other baked products served in schools will have to:

• contain at least 4g of fibre per 100g (with exemptions*)
• be made using at least 50% wholemeal flour, if 'homemade'
• have no more than 5g fat per 100g (though the guidance says they must be made without added fat or oil)

*The consultation response states that 'crumpets, pizza bases and tea cakes' will be exempt from the fibre requirements. 'These products have been exempted because higher-fibre equivalents are not widely available or routinely used within school catering, and applying the fibre requirement to them could create unnecessary implementation challenges without materially impacting overall fibre provision.'

A good starting point

The minimum fibre level was raised following a meeting between DfE, Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC), the Real Bread Campaign, the Children’s Food Campaign and school chef Dan Mountford. At the meeting the Real Bread Campaign pointed out that many sliced white industrial dough products met the Government’s proposed 3% fibre level, which fell well short of the 6% requirement for ‘high fibre’ labelling.

Giving an initial response to the new standards, Real Bread Campaign coordinator Chris Young said:

'We’re glad that the Government listened to us and raised their basic standard for fibre. It’s a good starting point and we hope that DfE will make it absolutely clear to schools that the standards are a minimum and that they can be more ambitious.'

Aware that some schools might encounter a range of challenges implementing the new standards, Young added:

‘We look forward to the Government stepping up to the plate by encouraging, and meaningfully supporting, schools to do even better and adopt our other proposals.'

The Campaign is now reviewing the consultation response and guidance in more detail, which might generate further observations and questions.

Have your say
Calling parents of school children in England; plus school cooks, heads and governors: if you've read the consultation response and new guidance, and they've raised any questions or concerns about the new standards for bread served by schools, please email the Real Bread Campaign.

Find out more

Here are the proposals the Real Bread Campaign made in its response to the public consultation on School Food Standards for England.

The Children’s Food Campaign has published Sustain’s response to the new standards as a whole [link to news item]

DfE also published new guidance for schools, headteachers and governors.

See also

• Bake Your Lawn grow-a-loaf guidebook (includes Lessons in Loaf guidance)
• Real Bread on the Menu
• Real Bread in your school?
• Chef in the classroom
• Seed to sandwich in Shaky Toon
• Bakers’ bush
• Playing fields of wheat
• From seed to sourdough
• Having a field day
• Toast for good health
• Ambassador profile: Marcia Harris
• Free bread making kits for schools
• I didn't know work could be such fun
• A breaducation
• Class act
• Yellow Door gets Northern Ireland schoolkids baking
• Campaign calls for sugar levy funding for Real Bread breakfasts
• Katie Caldesi to offer school teachers Lessons in Loaf
• Kids’ school lunches knead Real Bread!
• Knead to Know…more about setting up a microbakery