School meals

Citation

(2005), "School meals", Nutrition & Food Science, Vol. 35 No. 5. https://doi.org/10.1108/nfs.2005.01735eab.003

School meals

School meals

An extra £3220m over three years is to be spent on improving school meals in England’– as TV chef Jamie Oliver's campaign on the issue reaches a climax. At least 50p, up from the current 37p, will be spent on each primary school lunch and 60p in secondary schools.

Presenting a petition signed by 271,677 people to No 10, Mr Oliver said it was a shame it took a film to get changes. But education secretary Ruth Kelly insisted she had been planning to improve school lunches anyway.

There is also £360m to set up a new school food trust, which will advise schools and parents on nutritional standards and help them devise healthy menus.

Grants, to go via local education authorities, involve "new" money from Department for education and skills reserves.

In his Channel 4 series, Jamie Oliver has been scathing about the existing quality of many school dinners – revitalising a public debate on the issue. He was appalled to find the London borough of Greenwich was spending only 37p per child per day on primary school lunches.

The nutritional guidance for schools is to be advisory from this autumn and mandatory from September 2006. Parents will also get advice on nutritional standards. It will become part of school inspections and could mean some foodstuffs being banned from schools.

Nutritional standards were introduced in 2003 for schools in Scotland.