96% of parents believe school food should be fresh and nutritious

Chefs in Schools has published a report compiling findings from polls surveying 1,000 parents, and found that 96 per cent want their children’s school meals to be prepared with fresh and/or nutritious ingredients, with 83 per cent of these supporting stronger government action to improve quality across the board.

Chefs in Schools is a charity founded in 2018 to transform school food, school food culture and food education, particularly in areas with high socio-economic deprivation.

66 per cent of parents are concerned about the chance of their child being offered unhealthy food in secondary school every day, with 78 per cent affirming that when their child makes their own food choices, they are likely to pick items high in sugar, salt and fat.

More than three quarters (78 per cent) of parents said they’d support the government implementing a system to check if schools are measuring up to school food standards, as this currently doesn’t exist.

Research suggests that, on average, only 64 per cent of the school food standards are met by schools. Consequently, the Chefs in Schools report, titled The School Food Standards: What Parents Want For Their Children, makes several recommendations for updating the standards, such as limiting the sale of desserts, cakes, and biscuits to a maximum of twice a week, and offering fruit, vegetables or salad with each meal.

Alongside the report, Chefs in Schools is asking the public to share their experiences of school food, and their vision for how it should be going forward, which can be accessed here.

Naomi Duncan, chief executive of Chefs in Schools said: “We are at a pivotal moment of need and opportunity. Food-related ill health is limiting the lives of millions of us—including our children. Fuelling this crisis is the food environment children face, which is a Wild West of low-nutrition junk food. Even in schools and educational settings, children are not protected.

“Yet, it is exactly these settings where we can stem the tide of junk food and equip children with the knowledge and habits to feed themselves well for life. Recent government commitments reflect a recognition of the opportunity that exists in schools. Now we call on the government to be bold in its expectations for school food, to raise ambition and set a high baseline for standards.”