A New Era of School Food is Here

The programme brings together five organisations – Chefs in Schools, Bite Back, School Food Matters, the Jamie Oliver Group and The Food Foundation –  in a single, coordinated effort. Each partner contributes what it does best. Our contribution is what we’ve always done best: putting professional chefs into school kitchens to do the hands-on work of transformation. 

Around 2.7 million children in England live in food-insecure homes. For many, a school meal is the most nutritious food they will eat all day. Good standards matter — but standards alone don’t change what lands on a child’s plate. That takes skilled people, in real kitchens, doing real work. That’s exactly what Chefs in Schools exists to deliver, and exactly what we’re bringing to this coalition.

Within the School Food Project, Chefs in Schools will lead the Beacon school model. For the first year we are selecting ten schools to become centres of excellence in school food, five in Greater London and five in the North West. Each Beacon school will then support a small number of neighbouring ‘Cascade Schools’ as they begin their own transformation. It’s a model we know works: change one kitchen, and it ripples outward. Over the next five years 50 schools across the country will have been transformed through this offer.

The programme is fully funded. There is no cost to participating schools, though the value of the programme to each school exceeds £45,000. As part of an online resource hub we’re developing at Chefs in Schools, every school in the country, whether or not they are part of the Beacon or Cascade cohorts, will have access to a plethora of resources to support them on their own journey of school food improvement.

This launch comes at a significant moment. The government has today opened a public consultation on proposed new School Food Standards — the first update in over a decade. Better standards and better support need to arrive together. The School Food Project is our answer to the second part of that equation.

If your school is interested in being considered as a Beacon or Cascade school, or if you simply want to know more about how the programme works, we want to hear from you.

Find out more about the School Food Project and register your school’s interest by heading to the home page.