Government must support caterers - our response to Defra public food consultation

Our Head of Policy, Rob Percival, shares a summary of how we responded and what we're calling for, including extension of free school meals across all primary school children.

The government spends roughly £2bn each year on the food served in schools, hospitals and other public settings. Public procurement provides government with an opportunity – to date largely unrealised – to support sustainable British production, better animal welfare, local supply chains, on-site and fresh food preparation, and healthy and sustainable diets.

The National Food Strategy, authored by Henry Dimbleby and published last year, called for public procurement policy to be revised. Dimbleby highlighted the extraordinary impact of Food for Life and called for these achievements to be emulated nationally. Read more about how Food for Life was praised in the strategy.

The government responded this summer with a consultation, proposing a number of changes to procurement policy, including extending the mandatory Government Buying Standards for Food into education settings.

Among the most welcome, and ambitious, is the proposal that 50% of spend in public settings should be on local or ‘higher environmental standard produce’, such as organic, with a 20% minimum threshold for the latter.

We believe this target is attainable, important, and should be implemented. 

It does, however, represent a high level of ambition, and should be introduced with an appropriate lead-in time and sector-specific support, especially in the current context.

The most notable omission in the consultation concerns monitoring and enforcement of compliance, which will be required if the revised standards are to be effective. 

We are calling for an accreditation or assurance scheme to be developed, as recommended in the Food Strategy and government’s white paper, building on the success of our Food for Life programme.

Cost of living continues to put strain on caterers and public food

In our response, we also emphasised that Defra should not underestimate the scale of the challenge confronting caterers in the current operating environment.

A combination of rising ingredient costs and escalating energy prices is placing an intolerable strain on public food provision around the country. Many cooks and caterers are working tirelessly maintain the quality of their service, but this will not be viable if pressures are exacerbated.

Recent surveys conducted by Food for Life and LACA found that struggling caterers have chosen to switch from British to imported produce, especially for meat, with consequences for animal welfare and the environment. Others are considering moving from hot to cold meals.

You can read more about our survey with Food for Life Served Here caterers here.

In our response, we highlighted that Defra should be sensitive in how it communicates intended changes to public procurement policy, and ensure changes are matched with a suitable lead-in time and adequate support.

As a matter of urgency, Defra should work across government to ameliorate the current crisis. 

This includes:

• Extending free school meals across all primary school children (supporting struggling families while providing economies of scale)
• Ringfencing school meal funding
• Increasing budgets in line with inflation.

The School Food Standards should also be updated, allowing caterers to be more flexible in their provision of meat and healthy plant proteins.

None of these represent a silver bullet, but with millions of children at risk of going hungry at school, and caterers struggling to balance the books, there has never been a more important time to for government to prioritise public procurement and healthy school meals.

Rob Percival, Head of Policy at Soil Association

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