Warwickshire County Council Trading Standards Service

School Meals Sampling Project

Contact Simon Cripwell on 01926 414039 or 07771 97 55 70

Top Marks For School Dinners!

No one can forget the high profile ‘Feed Me Better’ campaign launched in 2005 by celebrity chef Jamie Oliverto ‘get rid of the junk’ in school dinners and replace them with healthy and nutritionallybalanced meals that kids would eat.

His Channel Four documentary series thrust school dinners in to the national headlines and led to the nation taking more notice of the quality of food being served to our children in schools.

A web petition with over 270,000 names was gathered and the then Prime Minister Tony Blair committed the Government to developing new and improved standards for school meals.

Following the publication of two reports: ‘Turning the Tables: Transforming School Food’ published by the School Meals Review Panel in October 2005, and the ‘Food Other than Lunch’ report, published by the School Food Trust in February 2006, the Government announced the standards it intended to apply to school food in May 2006.

The School Food Trust, (now a registered charity) was charged with taking forward these standards and transforming school food and food skills to improve health and education for school age children and young people.

The food and nutrient based standards now in place are designed to promote health, including helping pupils to control their weight, promote healthy teeth and in the longer term protect cardiovascular health.

There are clear and concise guideline for what an average hot, cold or pre-packed school lunch should provide. An average was chosen because many schools provide a choice of food and drink at lunchtime so each pupil consumes a different balance of nutrients. Also, some pupils need to eat more than others depending on age, body size, metabolism and physical activity.

The food based standards define which foods must be provided (e.g. fruit and vegetables, oily fish), which foods are restricted (e.g. deep fried foods, meat products) and which foods are not permitted (e.g. confectionery).

There are 14 nutrient-based standards including energy. The standards lay out which nutrients have a minimum threshold (because too little can be harmful) and which nutrients have a maximum threshold (because too much can be harmful). The standard for energy is based on an average value, rather than a minimum or a maximum value.

An average school lunch must provide:

  • The amount of energy laid down in the standard
  • No more than the maximum amount for fat, saturated fat, NME sugars and sodium
  • At least the minimum amount for carbohydrate, protein, fibre, vitamin A, vitamin C, folate, calcium, iron and zinc

Many of the food based standards which apply to school lunches also apply to other foods served across the school day, for example at breakfast clubs.

In order to ensure that the good work done by providing a nutritionally balanced school meal is not immediately undone by food provided from a tuck shop or vending machine, a ‘School Food Toolkit’ has been developed to help ensure that standards are maintained throughout the school day.

Trading Standards Services were one of the enforcement bodies given the role of ensuring that the standards were adhered to.

A UK First

Gill Kelly, WarwickshireCounty Council Trading Standards Officer, said:

“It has been several years since these standards were introduced and although other studies have looked at how schools are meeting them, to our knowledge no one has ever before sampled a whole three week cycle against the standard.”

In 2009 Warwickshire County Council’s Trading Standards Service, in partnership with Warwickshire County Caterers decided to look how school meals being served in Warwickshire fared against the national standard.

This would be the first time any complete meals would be sampled and tested against the standard in the UK.

Two Primary schools were carefully selected to take part in the project, onefrom a relatively affluent area and one an area of deprivation and meetings were organised with the head teachers of both schools and with catering staff to discuss the project further.

Warwickshire has some 197 primary schools each providing roughly the same menu choices.

Trading Standards Officers visited each school over a 15 day period, sampling (from school 1), the most popular lunch time choice of the day and from school 2 the second most popular choice of the day. A wide variety of meal choices were sampled, including baked alaskan salmon, quorn korma, creamed potatoes, fish and frozen vegetables, fruit jelly, chocolate treacle sponge, milk and fruit juice.

The samples were then sent away to the Public Analyst for testing and a summary produced highlighting where the nutrient standards were satisfactory and where improvements were needed. The survey looked at the amounts of energy, carbohydrates, sugars, fat, saturates, protein, fibre, sodium, vitamin A, vitamin C, folate, calcium iron and zinc in dinners provided each day and then produced an average for a complete meal cycle. This figure was then compared against the School Foods Trust Standard.

The Results

In most cases the results showed that the necessary nutrients were either well below the maximum level or well above the minimumlevel required. For example at school 1 protein levels were an average of 24.1g per meal, well above the 7.5g minimum level and saturate levels were 5.8g, lower than the maximum 6.5g level.

The school menus fared well when measured against the standard and showed that the County Catering Service was providing a high standard of service.

In most cases the nutrient standard thresholds were either close to, or met the published standards. In cases where the nutrient standards were a little out, solutions to deal with this were quickly identified, for example eliminating any deficiencies in vitamin levels by introducing more fresh vegetables.

Sandra Russell, Head of WarwickshireCounty Catering Service said:

“We have worked very hard to provide Warwickshire school children with well cooked, safe and nutritional meals that meet the standards set by Government.

Although it is the responsibility of individual schools governing bodies to meet the standards, we are best placed to ensure that this responsibility is properly discharged.

This project reinforces the work already undertaken to date by our Service and has been a valuable experience for all those involved. Our ability to menu plan so as to create dinners that look appetising and contain the required nutrients has particular benefited.

As a service will endeavour to continue to improve the quality of food we serve to the children of Warwickshire.”

Warwickshire County Councillor Richard Hobbs, Portfolio Holder for Community Protection added:

“This project is a wonderful example of how County Council Departments are working together to improve the services we provide and deliver better, healthier and more nutritious meals for our school children.”

WarwickshireCounty Councillor Martin Heatley, Portfolio Holder for Resources added: "Warwickshire County Caterers are committed to providing nutritious, delicious school meals in a fun environment and the results of this survey, a UK first, are particularly pleasing because they indicate that school meals in Warwickshire are of the high standard our customers expect. We were very pleased to work in partnership with Warwickshire Trading Standards on this most worthwhile project, the findings of which, are now being used to build on the good work already undertaken."

Warwickshire’s County Catering Service will now look at how they can use the finding of the survey report to iron out the few variations from the standard it highlighted. Changes made to menus and portion sizes will then be introduced when the new school meals menus are launched in November.

For more information, please contact: Gill Kelly, Trading Standards Officer

Warwickshire County Council Trading Standards Service. Tel: 01926 414053