Last month the UK Government announced that it is updating the School Foods Standards, a legislative framework established in 2014 to support healthy eating for schools in England (Wales has already carried out their own consultation with guidelines due to be published in the coming year). This update is well overdue as it has long been established that they do not align with existing nutritional guidelines and could help prevent the one in three children that are currently leaving primary school overweight or obese (UK Gov, 2026).
There has been plenty of media coverage of these plans but unfortunately, they seem to primarily focus on the high sugar and deep-fried food that is being ‘taken away’. There is a lot more to the plans, I’ve included some of the main exerts shown below.
The other important information to point out is that the government wants to get as much input on this as possible so that it becomes a collaborative effort that involves the opinions of both parents and children, the consultation period runs until the 12th June 2026, so I would encourage you to look at the proposals and fill in the online survey here: School Food Standards: updating the legislative framework – Department for Education – Citizen Space.
Please feel free to share what you think of these plans.
References
UK Government (2026) Government scraps high-sugar food from school menus. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-scraps-high-sugar-food-from-school-menus.
MLT Nutrition 