A Healthy Change

Eat Better, Do Better

In a drive to further improve school dinners across England, the Government has introduced new standards for school food. These standards are in 3 parts and are being phased in starting from September 2006.

From September 2006 schools will offer:

• Two portions of fruit and vegetables with every meal
• Oily fish at least once in every three week period
• Bread will additionally be available every day
• A limit of two single deep fried products will be available in a single week.
• Salt will not be available at lunch time
• The only drinks that will be available across all schools will be water, pure fruit juices, milk, yoghurt and milk drinks with less than 5% added sugar, low calorie hot chocolate, coffee and tea.
• Manufacturer’s meat products such as chicken nuggets, burgers, sausage rolls will generally be unavailable unless they meet the standards for minimum meat content.  Effectively these products will not be available. Devon Catering and Cleaning Services, our caterer will be offering from time to time a kitchen made burger.
• Sauces will be issued at the counter by the caterer to control the amounts being consumed by pupils.
  

From September 2007 confectionery, savoury snacks and fizzy drinks were no longer available during the school day.

From September 2008 school lunches in primary schools will additionally have to comply with a nutritional requirement that sets minimum standards for healthier food and restrictions on less healthy food. For secondary and special schools the deadline is September.

The Government has introduced a combination of food and nutrient-based standards to help increase children’s intake of fruit, vegetables and oily fish as well helping reduce the intake of fat, sugar and salt. Guidance has been issued by the School Food Trust to primary schools and will be producing guidance for secondary schools in June 2008. To view these Standards in more detail please visit the School Food Trust website.