Leaked food strategy for English schools is paltry, experts say

theguardian.com:

The government’s new food strategy offers a “paltry” budget of £250 for each English state school to teach healthy eating, and ignores most of Henry Dimbleby’s plans to improve child nutrition, campaigners say.

They say that with children being fed microwaved and cold meals by schools struggling with the cost of living crisis, a stronger response is needed.

A leaked copy of the strategy, seen by the Guardian, shows limited ambition to tackle child food poverty and obesity, with few new announcements.

The white paper refers to a £5m fund for a “school cooking revolution”, but this amounts to about £250 for each state school to teach pupils how to cook healthy food.

This has disappointed campaigners, who hoped the reviews by Henry Dimbleby in 2020 and last year, which recommended an expansion of free school meals and nutrition standards for food in schools, would be taken on board.

Instead, the government has made a vague commitment to keep eligibility for free school meals under review.

Rob Percival, the head of food policy at the Soil Association, said: “The most disappointing part of the white paper is the failure to extend the entitlement for free school meals.

“We are approaching 1 million children in poverty that don’t get free school meals. There are gaping holes in the nutrition safety net and vulnerable children are falling through.

“At the moment there are mandatory food nutrition standards for both schools and hospitals but there is no monitoring of compliance. We estimate 60% of secondary schools are failing to deliver the nutritional standards that children deserve.

“Caterers are reaching a tipping point where it is really hard to maintain quality. We have heard reports of microwave meals instead of cooked meals to