Fried nuggets and steamed sponges off menu in school food overhaul in England | School meals
The government is to announce an overhaul of school meal standards in England that will see calorific classics such as fish and chips and steamed sponge cake banned.
New rules in the first major update to school food standards in 13 years will come into force from September. 2024 data published by the NHS in January shows that 24 per cent of nursery and primary school children are overweight or living with obesity.
Describing the changes as “the most ambitious overhaul of school meals in a generation”, Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson said: “Every child deserves to have delicious, nutritious food in school that gives them the energy to concentrate, learn and thrive – food that children will actually recognize and enjoy, backed by solid compliance, helping to make good standards on paper become good food on the plate.”
Some of the changes, which come into effect in September 2027, put the future of steamed sponge cakes and jam buns in doubt by making it mandatory for all school puddings to be made from at least 50% fruit, for example, and also ban all deep-fried items such as battered fish and chicken pieces.
Henry Dimbleby, co-founder of the Leon chain and co-author of the 2013 school meal plan, the final rules update, described the new standards as “a rare chance to reset school meals.” Currently, schools are allowed to serve two servings of deep-fried meals per week and desserts containing less than 50% fruit three days per week.
Dimbleby said the changes would provide “wider access to free school meals and higher standards, with appropriate monitoring to help schools improve what is left on the plate”, but would only work if the government and schools showed a corresponding commitment to this.
“September could mark the beginning of a new normal where every child can count on a lunch that is both delicious and nutritious, and where every parent can truly trust what they are being served,” he said. “When done right, it will improve children’s health, academic outcomes and chances of success later in life.”
In response to the new standards, five leading education and food organizations have created the School Food Project, an initiative that will provide practical support to schools to help them produce healthier, higher quality meals.
The project, a partnership between Bite Back, Chefs in Schools, Jamie Oliver Group, School Food Matters and The Food Foundation, has already raised £2.3 million with the help of donations and aims to launch in September 2026 to coincide with the completion and publication of the new standards.
Chef Jamie Oliver, who has campaigned for more than two decades to improve the quality of food children eat in and out of school, said he was pleased “the government has now updated and introduced standards” and described school meals as the “most important restaurant chain” in the country.
“Twenty years ago dog food had higher standards than school lunches,” he said. “From September schools will provide two-thirds of a child’s daily diet throughout term time, a huge opportunity to improve health at scale.”
D’Arcy Williams, chief executive of Bite Back, a youth-led group campaigning for healthier meals in schools, praised the announcement, calling it “an overdue step towards improving the food young people rely on every day”, while noting that there was still much work to be done and “the scale of the challenge cannot be ignored”.
Williams said: “It is extremely worrying that so many children are consuming too much sugar and three quarters of parents are concerned about what their children are eating. The reality is that the system is not working. We have standards that aim to protect children’s health, but without appropriate monitoring and accountability these standards are not consistently applied. This has allowed a grab-and-go culture to take hold in many schools, where speed and convenience often come at the expense of nutrition.”
