School Food Policy
The School Food Standards Consultation Has Closed: What We Said
The government’s consultation on the School Food Standards closed on 12th June. Chefs in Schools submitted a response spanning over thirty questions and twenty pages, and one question ran through all of it: what actually happens when this policy reaches a real school kitchen?
After nearly a decade working alongside school chefs, we’ve learned that good policy can fall short when it doesn’t account for how school kitchens actually operate. That experience shaped our response.
On reducing desserts
We fully support capping baked treats to no more than once a week in primary schools and moving to fruit-first days. At schools like Smallwood Primary in Tooting, fresh fruit and yogurt are already the norm, and the transition has had no negative impact on meal uptake. But our support isn’t just about nutrition. Reducing complex dessert production also frees up oven space and staff time to focus on the main meal, which is where the biggest nutritional gains are made.
On drinks in secondary schools
We want a water and milk only policy from day one, not a gradual phase-out. In secondary settings, heavily marketed drinks can account for a significant portion of daily sales, meaning limited student budgets and Free School Meal allocations are being spent before pupils even reach the food. A strict policy removes that problem entirely. We also called on the government to couple this with direct investment in drinking fountains and refilling stations; a water-only policy only works if clean water is genuinely accessible.
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On deep frying
We challenged the proposal to ban on-site deep frying while continuing to permit foods that were deep fried during manufacture. The logic doesn’t hold. If the goal is reducing ultra-processed food, the rules need to reflect that consistently, not create a loophole that benefits bought-in products over freshly cooked ones.
On plant proteins
We backed proposals to increase beans, lentils and whole-food proteins on school menus because they reduce ingredient costs, improve nutritional quality, and – when cooked well – can be introduced without pupils noticing much difference. Our school chefs do this regularly.
The bigger picture
The thread running through our entire response: better standards alone won’t improve school food. The people cooking it will. The government needs to make training for school kitchen teams mandatory, and it needs to protect smaller schools (those with 225 or fewer pupils) whose fixed costs are already outpacing income and who risk being pushed toward bought-in ready meals as a result.
Writing the rules is the easy part. Making them work, in thousands of kitchens, for millions of children, requires investment in the people and infrastructure behind the food.
The government’s consultation response is expected in September. We’ll be ready.
Read our full response here.