Response to Government announcement on the future of school meals

Step in the right direction
10.02.05

. . . Key recommendations should just be the start . . .

Leading children's charity and school meals campaigner the Child Poverty Action Group today welcomed the Government's intention to introduce new guidelines for school meals in England.

Education Secretary Ruth Kelly is to reveal plans to tighten the health requirements for school meals.
'Today's announcement is good news for children,' said CPAG's Chief Executive Kate Green. 'We hope it will be the start of a wider process that will ensure school meals are of the highest quality.'

'School meals play an important role in promoting healthy eating and tackling disadvantage. Reducing the fat, salt and sugar in the food that school children eat will make the meals tastier, more nutritious and will encourage a higher take up.'

Minimum standards for processed foods will be introduced in an attempt to cut the fat, salt and sugar content of what children eat. Following consultation, the Government says it will set up an independent "school food trust" to maintain standards.

Also, from April, school cooks will be offered vocational qualifications, to "help them promote healthy food". CPAG published a groundbreaking report Recipe for Change at the end of 2004. In it, they made a number of recommendations for Government to implement to ensure that schools provide high quality school meals.

'We are encouraged that one of our key recommendations for school cooks to be offered vocational training is being implemented,' said Kate Green. 'But the Government must not think this is the whole answer.'

'The nutritional content of the meal is of course important. But they must also look at issues such as take up, stigma associated with free school meals, and the role of food in the national curriculum.'

'If the school food trust does this then there is real hope for a bright future for all of our children's nutrition.'

For further information:
Ashley Riley
Press Officer
Tel. 020 7812 5216
Mobile 07811 324339
e-mail ariley@cpag.org.u

Notes

In 2004 CPAG published Recipe for Change - a good practice guide for school meals written by Ashley Riley and Carieanne Hurley. It was the first book to bring together examples of individual initiatives from around the UK that have significantly improved the quality and take-up of school meals. It also includes an overview of the link between nutrition and child poverty, and developments in school meals policy and practice over the last 50 years. It makes key policy recommendations and includes many practical ideas that school meals providers can adapt for use in their own community.