Maintaining Healthy and Sustainable Menus while costs rise

Each day we’re reminded of the worsening cost-of-living crisis. Creating accessible routes to good food for everyone has never been so important, especially given the crisis is disproportionately impacting those that have least.

For Food for Life, part of our response to this context is strengthening our support to Early Years settings, where our partnerships help to create healthy and sustainable food environments for our very youngest.  This autumn and winter, the nutritional safety net that these settings provide is vital to protect children's health.

Our network of Food for Life nurseries are part of the solution to this crisis: creative and collaborative. They are pooling ideas to ensure that their work to prioritise healthy and sustainable menus and food environments doesn’t need to be sacrificed in a bid to cover the bills.

More than 50 Early Years settings came together on October 4^th to explore routes to sustaining healthy and sustainable menus while costs rise. We shared useful keep menus nutritious and cheap, as well as cutting down on energy costs. Guest speakers from two nurseries shared how they have made simple nutritious swaps that don’t cost the earth.

Jackie and Catherine, from The Lemon Tree nursery in Hull, shared their experiences of changing their menus to improve the eating experience and nutrition for their small people:  

“We hired Catherine, our ‘cooker’ because we really wanted to raise the game around our menus.  It’s not always been easy – some of the better quality ingredients, that are better for the kids, are more expensive.  So we’ve made some changes, like replacing some of the mince in our bolognaise with lentils.  The children love it and it means buying British beef mince is within our budget.

We’ve learnt lots of tricks through working with Food for Life that make things healthier and more affordable. We want to use salmon because the oily fish is so important for little bodies and brains.  We know now that using tinned salmon is a great affordable option – we’re putting it into our fish pies and the little ones love it.

We know that the children are getting better dishes but our costs aren’t rising.  We can see the impact because we have more clean plates now – they’re getting the goodness and we’re not wasting food or needing to provide alternatives.”

Louis Hughes, the cook at Windmill Hill nursery in Bristol, also shared his top tips with the network:

“I am passionate about organic to provide menus that are good for the kids and for nature.  But it can be more costly.  I recommend buying bulk and dried ingredients (rice, dried beans and pulses, flour) to reduce cost.  I have worked with Essential and Hodmedod’s to get these things in bulk at prices that work for us.

We also work with local farms, which means we can access cheap ingredients, seasonally, as well as link the children’s education to the farm so they know where the food has come from – they can see it in the soil and then on their plates.  You need to be a bit creative with using local farm produce but it’s been brilliant for our menus – pesto made out of spinach and kale has been so popular with the kids.

I’ve also saved money by planning menus carefully to incorporate one day’s cooking in the next – we’ll have curry on a Monday and I’ll safely store the cooked rice overnight to make a kedgeree the next day.”

The network session gave us an opportunity to speak to our settings and offer vital support as the cost of living bites, as well as offer nurseries a chance to ask questions or share tips. We understand how challenging these times are and want to help where we can to ensure young children are getting at least one healthy meal a day. That’s what Food for Life is all about – ensuring everyone has access to good food and giving children the best start in life.