\n<\/p>\n
The government is to announce an overhaul to school food standards in England that will lead to calorific classics such as fish and chips and steamed sponges being banned.<\/p>\n
The new rules of the first major update to school food standards in 13 years will apply from September. They are part of efforts to lower the rates of childhood obesity, with data for 2024 released by the NHS in January showing that 24% of nursery and primary school children were overweight or living with obesity.<\/p>\n
Describing the changes as \u201cthe most ambitious overhaul of school food in a generation\u201d, the education secretary, Bridget Phillipson, said: \u201cEvery child deserves to have delicious, nutritious food at school that gives them the energy to concentrate, learn and thrive \u2013 meals that children will actually recognise and enjoy, backed by robust compliance so that good standards on paper become good food on the plate.\u201d<\/p>\n
Some changes that will come into effect in September 2027, such as making it mandatory for all school puddings to be made of at least 50% fruit \u2013 leaving the future of steamed sponges and jam doughnuts in doubt \u2013 while also banning all deep-fried items such as battered fish and chicken nuggets.<\/p>\n
Henry Dimbleby, a co-founder of the Leon chain and co-author of the last rules update, the 2013 school food plan \u2013 described the new standards as \u201ca rare chance to reset school food\u201d. At the moment, schools are allowed to serve two portions of deep-fried food each week and desserts with less than 50% fruit three days a week.<\/p>\n
Dimbleby said the changes would provide \u201cwider access to free school meals and higher standards, with proper monitoring to help schools improve what ends up on the plate\u201d, but would only work if the government and schools showed a proper commitment to it.<\/p>\n
\u201cSeptember can mark the start of a new normal, where every child can count on a lunch that is both delicious and nutritious, and every parent can have real confidence in what\u2019s being served,\u201d he said. \u201cDone right, it will boost children\u2019s health, their academic outcomes and their chances of success in later life.\u201d<\/p>\n
In response to the new standards, five leading education and food organisations have formed the School Food Project, an initiative that will provide practical support to schools to help them produce healthier, better quality meals.<\/p>\n
The project, a partnership of Bite Back, Chefs in Schools, Jamie Oliver Group, School Food Matters and The Food Foundation, has already raised \u00a32.3m with the help of donations, and it aims to launch in September 2026 to coincide with the new standards being finalised and published.<\/p>\n
The chef Jamie Oliver, who has campaigned for more than two decades to improve the quality of food that children eat inside and outside school, said he was \u201cdelighted this government is now updating and enforcing\u201d standards, and described school food as the \u201cmost important restaurant chain\u201d in the country.<\/p>\n
\u201cTwenty years ago, dog food had higher standards than school dinners,\u201d he said. \u201cFrom September, during term-time, schools will provide two-thirds of a child\u2019s daily diet \u2013 a massive opportunity to improve health at scale.\u201d<\/p>\n
D\u2019Arcy Williams, the CEO of Bite Back, a youth-led group that campaigns for healthier meals in school, praised the announcement, calling it a \u201clong-overdue step towards improving the food young people rely on every day\u201d, while stating there was still lots of work to be done and that \u201cthe scale of the challenge cannot be ignored\u201d.<\/p>\n
Williams said: \u201cIt is deeply worrying that so many children are consuming too much sugar, and that three-quarters of parents are concerned about what their children are eating. The reality is that the system hasn\u2019t been working. We have standards that are meant to protect children\u2019s health, but without proper monitoring and accountability, they haven\u2019t been consistently enforced. That\u2019s allowed a grab-and-go culture to take hold in many schools, where speed and convenience often come at the expense of nutrition.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The government is to announce an overhaul to school food standards in England that will lead to calorific classics such as fish and chips and steamed sponges being banned. The new rules of the first major update to school food standards in 13 years will apply from September. They are part of efforts to lower<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":48228,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[311,1725,3291,6023,2535,12955,1015,334,16041,24193],"class_list":{"0":"post-48227","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-education","8":"tag-england","9":"tag-food","10":"tag-fried","11":"tag-meals","12":"tag-menu","13":"tag-nuggets","14":"tag-overhaul","15":"tag-school","16":"tag-sponges","17":"tag-steamed"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48227","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=48227"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48227\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/48228"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=48227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=48227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=48227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}