Transcript Presentation School Food Trust claire ricks June 12

What are the national school
food standards?
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Recommended by the School Meals Review Panel
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Phased in for all maintained schools from 2006
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Made up of ‘food-based’ and ‘nutrient-based’ standards
What was their impact?
Primary schools:
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Children are eating more portions of fruit and
vegetables as part of their meal
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Children have an average of two portions of their ‘5a-day’ as part of their school lunch
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The average meal is lower in fat, sugar and salt
than it was in 2005
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Caterers are providing healthier lunches with more
veg, salad and fruit; fewer chips and other starchy
foods cooked in fat; and no crisps or sweets
What was their impact?
Secondary schools:
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The proportion of young people having chips for
their school lunch was down from 43% in 2004 to
7% in 2011.
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Almost all schools had ditched the sale of chocolate,
sweets and crisps completely
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Almost three quarters of students had at least some
veg, pulses, fruit or fruit juice as part of their lunch –
though they still need to eat more of it!
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The average meal being eaten contained around a
third less saturated fat, fat, salt and sugar than it did
in 2004.
So…
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The legislation has made school food healthier, where
the previous voluntary guidelines saw the nutritional
quality of school food deteriorate
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There’s been huge improvement – but there’s still more
to do, particularly for secondary schools where their
catering is so complex
Changing times
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Academies and free schools are not required to meet the
national school food standards. The Department for
Education’s advice is that academies are “free to
promote healthy eating and good nutrition as they see
fit.”
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SFT was commissioned by the department to explore
how 13 academies approach their food policy
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SFT also conducted research with a much larger sample
of 100 academies, plus several other small studies
What did we find overall?
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A mixed picture: some academies continue to do great
work with food and are following the standards
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Other academies are not doing so well – reporting to sell
products like confectionary, crisps and soft drinks
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More than twice as many academy schools offering
confectionary or crisps compared with maintained
schools
What’s happening now?
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Continuing to promote and share the evidence
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Campaigners including Jamie Oliver have formed a
coalition to ‘Save our School Food Standards’,
championing an Early Day Motion in parliament – see
http://www.sustainweb.org/sos/
Further information:
• http://www.schoolfoodtrust.org.uk/school-cookscaterers/reports/food-in-academy-schools - the host
page for all the academy studies SFT have completed.
• National surveys of food in primary schools:
http://www.schoolfoodtrust.org.uk/research/surveys-andmonitoring#primarystudy and in secondaries:
http://www.schoolfoodtrust.org.uk/research/surveys-andmonitoring#secondarystudy - together these provide the
first evidence of the impact of the national school food
standards legislation
Over to you…
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Should all schools have to follow the school food
standards, as basics that we should expect for all
children at school?
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What might platform members do to encourage all
schools in the East Midlands to follow the standards as
best practice?
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What could parents do?