Caterers welcome school meals rules

School meals caterers have rejected claims that the Government has "given in" to their demands to drop rigid nutritional standards for school lunches.

The Government's new standards for school lunches - the first to be introduced in 20 years - specify how many foods from each food group should be served each day.

Caterers had feared the standards would be based solely on nutritional values, forcing schools to control their pupils' intake of fat, carbohydrate, protein and fibre.

The Government has also backed away from its threat to ban chips two days a week in secondary schools.

Chips will be off the menu for two days a week in primary schools, but secondary schools will be able to serve chips every day as long as they also offer an alternative starchy food that has not been cooked in fat or oil. The new rules come into force next April.

The Child Poverty Action Group has accused the Government of giving in to school caterers, but caterers say nutrient-based standards would have been impossible to implement.

School meals consultant Vic Laws believes it is unfair to blame caterers for children's poor diets. "The Government hasn't backed down - it has seen sense," he said.

"We would have had to virtually force-feed children to get them to eat a nutrient-based diet. There's no point in serving them a perfectly balanced meal if it ends up in the bin."

Pat Fellows, an independent consultant working for the Local Authority Caterers Association (LACA), believes there would have been a mass walk-out by school meals caterers if nutrient-based standards had been introduced.

She said children's diets would not improve unless caterers, teachers and parents work together to educate them about healthy eating. Many parents cannot cook, children do very little cooking at school and "grazing" on snacks has become so common that some children start primary school unable to use a knife and fork.

by Linley Boniface