PRESS RELEASE : Improving school food [July 2012]

The press release issued by the Department for Education on 4 July 2012.

The government has today announced that it has asked the co-founders of LEON restaurant chain, Henry Dimbleby and John Vincent, to examine school food across the country. They will create an action plan to accelerate improvement in school food and determine the role of food more broadly in school life.

Over the last decade there has been a big change of attitude towards school food and significant improvement in many schools. This is the result of work done by a large array of people, including the School Food Trust, associated charities such as School Food Matters, and Jamie Oliver’s Foundation – not to mention the individual cooks, teachers, parents, pupils, outside caterers and local authorities who have embraced the cause.

However in both maintained schools and academies there is a lot of work still to do. School Food Trust research shows that:

• take-up of school lunches is just 38% in secondary schools and 44% in primary schools;
• only 22.5% of schools provide at least one portion of fruit and veg per pupil every day;
• half of secondary schools offer pizzas and starchy food cooked in oil on most days;
• a third of young people are not choosing a healthy balanced meal at school.

The plan from Henry and John will examine which schools are doing things well and why. It will set out how all schools can reach a standard to be proud of. They will speak to experts, review research and visit schools as well as conduct primary research in order to build up a systematic picture of school food across England. An important part of their work will involve looking at what factors influence school food choices.

To ensure that our children are eating well in schools the plan will address two key questions:

• What more needs to be done to make tasty, nutritious food available to all school children?
• How do we excite children about the food so that they want to eat it?

Henry and John have experience in creating nutritious food that tastes good, in large volume, to a budget. And before LEON, they both led large scale change in commercial organisations. Henry and John will be looking at all ways that change can be brought about: leadership, communication, rewards, inspiration, training, structures and supply chain, regulation, responsibilities within schools, reporting, and the role of parents and people from the world of food.

Education Secretary Michael Gove said:

There has been an improvement in school food in recent years with many schools transforming school dinners, introducing food growing into the curriculum and teaching cookery. However, there is still more to do particularly in taking localised successes and ensuring they are replicated nationally.

Henry Dimbleby and John Vincent bring a wealth of practical experience in delivering good food on a budget. I am delighted they have agreed to develop a robust plan to improve school food and ensure children are given an education that cultivates in them an understanding of food and nutrition.

John Vincent said:

We have a mission at LEON to make it easy for everybody to eat good food. We do it commercially with LEON, and so we are energised by the chance to do so with school food. We join a powerful and growing team of people who have done so much. What we all now need is an action plan that gets to grips with exactly how the ideas and dreams can be implemented for all kids, and stick.

Henry Dimbleby said:

There is so much good work being done to improve school food by people in schools around the country. Our job is to find out which schools are doing well and why. This is a great opportunity to work with those people to set out in a systematic way what needs to be done to nurture and accelerate those improvements.