The school dinner queue is about to look very different — and not everyone’s going to be thrilled about it.
New government proposals would see deep-fried food effectively banned from school canteens across England, with strict limits placed on sugary desserts and a much greater emphasis on vegetables and whole grains. If the plans go through, that battered sausage and pile of chips might soon be a distant memory for millions of pupils.
The draft standards, put forward by the Department for Education, are the most significant overhaul of school food rules in nearly two decades. They’d require schools to serve at least two portions of vegetables per meal, increase wholegrains in bread and pasta, and cap the number of days per week that starchy foods cooked in oil — think chips, fritters, and fried potato products — can appear on the menu. The answer, for those wondering, is essentially zero for deep-fried options.
“Children deserve food at school that actually fuels them through the day,” said one school nutritionist consulted during the review process. “What we’ve been serving in some canteens wouldn’t look out of place in a 1970s greasy spoon.”
Campaigners have broadly welcomed the changes. The Children’s Food Trust, which has long pushed for stronger standards, says poor nutrition at lunchtime directly affects concentration and behaviour in afternoon lessons. Given that around 1.9 million pupils in England currently receive free school meals, the stakes are considerable.
Not everyone’s convinced the execution will be straightforward, though. Several head teachers have raised concerns about cost — wholegrains and fresh vegetables don’t come cheap when you’re feeding hundreds of kids on a tight budget. One school business manager in the Midlands put it plainly: “We want to do the right thing. But if the funding doesn’t follow, we’re just going to end up with smaller portions of better food.”
The consultation period runs until later this year, with any new rules expected to come into force by 2026 at the earliest.
Whether a generation of kids will actually eat their way through a plate of roasted courgette and bulgur wheat — well, that’s perhaps the bigger question nobody’s quite answered yet.
