Deep-fried and high-sugar food will be banned from school lunches, while sausage rolls, pastries and pizzas will be restricted on menus under plans to overhaul food standards
Deep-fried and high-sugar food will be banned from school lunches, while sausage rolls, pastries and pizzas will be restricted on menus under plans to overhaul food standards.
New standards will require school menus to cut out high-sugar food such as ice cream, waffles and sugary drinks. Sweetened baked desserts like steamed sponge and custard or jam roly-poly will be restricted, with any puddings needing to contain at least 50% fruit.
The rules will also require school dinners to include more higher-fibre wholegrains — including wholemeal bread, brown pasta and rice – as well as pulses like lentils and chickpeas alongside main meal options at least once a week.
A portion of vegetables or salad must accompany every main meal, while fruit will also need to be served instead of sugar-laden treats for the majority of the school week.
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New sample menus will include a range of health-packed meals – including spaghetti bolognese, Mexican style burritos, cottage pie with root-veg mash, jerk chicken with rice and peas and roasted chickpea, vegetable and mozzarella wrap.
The plans are billed as the first shake-up of School Food Standards in over a decade. Secondary schools will have till September 2028 to make changes to allow them more time to improve the quality of grab-and-go options.
The government will on Monday launch a nine‑week consultation on the healthier options with parents and children, alongside a new national enforcement mechanism to monitor the new standards. Full details of the enforcement system will be announced this September.
The new standards have been developed alongside nutritionists and public health experts and will apply to all breakfasts and lunches served by schools. These changes are supported by food campaigners, charities and nutritional experts including Bite Back, Tom Kerridge, Chefs in Schools, Emma Thompson and Henry Dimbleby.
It comes as one in three children are leaving primary school overweight or obese, while tooth decay from diets high in sugar is the leading cause of hospital admissions for kids aged five to nine.
New polling shows 74% of parents have at least one concern about their child’s nutrition – from too much sugar (43%) and too many fatty foods (24%), to not enough fruit and vegetables (30%).
The Mirror has long campaigned for healthy and nutritious free school meals for all primary school children. In a victory for our campaign, the government announced an extension of free lunches to every child from a household in receipt of Universal Credit from September 2026.
Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson said: “Every child deserves to have delicious, nutritious food at school that gives them the energy to concentrate, learn and thrive – meals that children will actually recognise and enjoy, backed by robust compliance so that good standards on paper become good food on the plate.”
Henry Dimbleby, the former government food tsar and author of the Independent National Food Strategy, said: “Today we have a rare chance to reset school food: wider access to free school meals, higher standards – with proper monitoring to help schools improve what ends up on the plate.
“Done right it will boost children’s health, their academic outcomes and their chances of success in later life. But it will only work if the government sticks to the timetable set out today – and if schools and caterers are backed to deliver, and held to it.”
::: Polling was conducted by Deltapoll for the Department for Education between April 3 and 7, with a sample size of 1,007 parents of children aged between 4 and 18 in England.