The wholesale and education catering sectors have welcomed the government’s plan to overhaul the school food standards, but have warned challenges remain around funding, sector alignment and ensuring food is actually appealing to pupils.
The move, which has been described by education secretary Bridget Phillipson as “the most ambitious overhaul of school food in a generation”, will apply to all breakfasts and lunches served by schools.
Under the plans, schools will no longer be able to offer unhealthy ‘grab and go’ options such as sausage rolls and pizza every day, while deep fried food will be banned completely.
Fruit will need to be served instead of “sugar-laden treats” for the majority of the school week, while the government is proposing taking fruit juice off the menu and banning squash in primary schools.
Additionally, schools are currently required to serve meat or poultry on three or more days each week to ensure sufficient protein. However, the government is proposing that schools will be able to serve either meat, poultry, or pulses on three or more days each week instead, which could open up the possibility for the first vegetarian state schools.
Sample lunch menus include spaghetti bolognese, Mexican-style burritos, cottage pie with root veg mash, jerk chicken with rice and peas, and a roasted chickpea, vegetable & mozzarella wrap. The changes have been developed alongside nutritionists and public health experts.
While the FWD has welcomed the move towards improving the quality and nutritional value of school food, a spokesperson told The Grocer that without “adequate funding and clear, consistent standards”, there was a “real risk that expectations around healthier food won’t be matched by what can be delivered in practice”.
“Wholesalers serving the public sector are already operating under significant financial pressure, with rising food, energy and labour costs affecting the entire supply chain. This in turn impacts the ability of schools and caterers to consistently deliver high-quality meals within tight budgets.”
To ensure the government’s ambitions translate into sustainable improvements, it said a more joined-up approach, linking policy, procurement, and delivery across the supply chain, would be “essential”.
The government has launched a nine-week consultation on the healthier options with parents and children. It is also looking at a new national enforcement mechanism to monitor the new standards and ensure they are applied consistently. Full details of the enforcement system will be announced in September, with enforcement in place from September 2027.
Alongside this, the government also wants every school to appoint a lead governor to be responsible for food, as well as asking every school to publish their food policy and menus online. This comes after 50% of parents in England said they did not get enough information about what their children were being served.
The changes also come after 74% of parents said they had at least one concern about their child’s nutrition – from too much sugar (43%) and too many fatty foods (24%), to not enough fruit & vegetables (30%).
‘Unappealing’ risk
However, John Want, CEO of specialist education contract caterer HCL, said that while the business “broadly supports the changes”, he expressed concerns that tipping the nutritional balance too far risked making meals unappealing.
“We already provide Sugarwise-compliant puddings and feel that only having one pudding per week will put children off. A hungry child is the last thing anyone wants, and we feel caterers and suppliers can work together to provide an excellent standard of nutrition whilst ensuring meals remain appealing.”
It’s a view echoed by Bidfood education and healthcare development controller Gavin Squires, who said success would depend not just on higher nutritional requirements, but ”on whether they translate into meals that can be consistently delivered and, crucially, eaten by pupils”.
He said the updated standards must take into account “pupil appeal, tight school and household budgets, and the operational realities faced in kitchen and dining halls”.
”Where these practical factors are not fully considered, there is a risk that well-intentioned changes to standards could reduce menu choice, and risk lower uptake, pushing more families towards unregulated packed lunches, making nutritional outcomes unattainable and school food provision economically unviable for caterers.”
There will be a phased approach for some changes in secondary schools to give schools time to develop recipes, update menus and train staff. However, the government is encouraging schools who are ready to adopt the new standards to do so immediately.
It comes as over 500 new free breakfast clubs begin to open their doors this month, offering places up to 142,000 children. The government has already rolled out free breakfast clubs in 750 schools.
This also builds on the government’s extension of free school meals to ever child from a household in receipt of Universal Credit from September 2026, a move that will reach over half a million more children and lift 100,000 out of poverty, according to the government.
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