Big congratulations to St Mary's C of E School in Hinckley, Leicestershire, who have achieved their Food for Life Gold Award. This it the highest level of the Food for Life Schools Award and is proof of a school’s exceptional dedication to building a good food culture.
Holy Cross enrolled into the Food for Life programme in July 2024 and since then have been hard at work improving their school food culture. Their first step was to set up a SNAG – a school nutrition action group – made up of pupils and staff who want to effect change.
Last week, we went to the Houses of Parliament to make our voices heard on universal free school meals. A new report from Barnardo’s has revealed that nearly one in five UK parents have to buy unhealthy food for their children because they can’t afford healthier options, whilst School Food Matters reported that 25% of teachers use their own money to feed pupils.
We wanted to find out how we can best support children to develop a love for fresh, healthy, minimally processed food. What are the policy solutions that could help shift children’s diets? How do we collectively instil a love of good food from an early age?
We work with local authorities across the UK to make good food the norm, supporting schools nurseries and caterers to serve up freshly prepared food and get people connected with where food comes from. One part of this is running training sessions for teachers and school staff so that they can learn new skills to bring back to their school and pass on to pupils.
For over 20 years, Food for Life has been working with schools, nurseries and caterers across the UK to get meals that are at least 75% freshly prepared with whole and minimally processed ingredients on our plates.
The Phat Pasty Co have been a part of the Sustainable Supplier Scheme since 2017 and were the first savoury pasty company to adopt Food for Life standards across their products. In fact, this is one of many ‘firsts’, with Phat leading the way in so many different areas.
Schools in Lancashire have been making good use of Food for Life’s wealth of resources to run cooking clubs. They’re able to access these expert resources thanks to Lancashire County Council commissioning Food for Life to make good food the norm across the county.
Pupils and teachers at this Lancashire primary school have been making use of Food for Life’s Cook and Share resources to cook up a storm.
Last week, the Food for Life #Lancashire team delivered training to 16 teachers from local schools on garden planning, composting and maintaining a growing space. Participants learnt how to grow microgreens, when and how to grow various edible plants, and began making plans for their own growing space.
The school have been working hard to improve their food culture and pupil wellbeing and were delighted to receive their Food for Life Foundation Award during a recent assembly. They are the first school in West Northamptonshire to achieve this award.
Inspired by their work with the Food for Life programme and with the cost of healthy meals increasing, St Philip’s Primary School in Lancashire has been running free ‘budget boosting’ meal workshops.
