On the 17th June, Education Secretary Michael Gove, launched a new set of standards for all food served in schools.
These new standards promote healthy eating and will be mandatory for local authority schools, new free schools and schools that convert to academy status. They are designed to make it easier for school cooks to create imaginative, flexible and nutritious menus.
The new food standards replace nutrient based standards, introduced between 2006 and 2009, which did much to improve school food but were complicated and often meant school cooks couldn’t be as flexible or creative as they wanted to be.
The new standards offer a more comprehensive list of food based standards, with a general principle that variety is key – it is important to provide a wide range of foods across the week, whether it's different fruits, vegetables, grains, pulses or types of meat and fish.
The new standards include:
• 1 or more portions of vegetables or salad as an accompaniment every day
• At least 3 different fruits, and 3 different vegetables each week
• An emphasis on wholegrain foods in place of refined carbohydrates
• An emphasis on making water the drink of choice:
• Limiting fruit juice portions to 150mls
• Restricting the amount of added sugars or honey in other drinks to 5%
• No more than 2 portions a week of food that has been deep fried, batter coated, or breadcrumb coated
• No more than 2 portions of food which include pastry each week
For full details of standards including; checklists and portion size guidance download a copy of The School Food Plan from http://www.schoolfoodplan.com/standards/
If you would like further help or guidance on ensuring compliance with the new standards our qualified team of nutrition experts will be happy to help.
Simply call us on1252 705 222 or email hello@pelicanprocurement.co.uk
