Government to pilot state-subsidised restaurants

State-subsidised restaurants are set to open in Dundee and Nottingham as part of an £8.5m government scheme to tackle food inequality.

The ‘public restaurants’ pilot announced by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology aims to support deprived households with children through the provision of nutritious food.

The restaurants will draw on public health nutrition research and run sessions with a wide range of customers.

The project, entitled DISHED: co-designing innovative infrastructure for sustainable healthy and equitable diets, will be led by the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex.

It forms part of six government-backed initiatives to support households that are struggling to eat nutritious meals.

These include an investigation into school food systems across the UK, which will be conducted by academics in Wales looking to improve the nutritional content of free school meals.

Peter Kyle, science and technology secretary, said: “These projects will draw on the power of research to actively explore the best ways to get healthy food into the mouths of those who need it, potentially having a transformational effect on people’s lives, and fulfilling the missions set in our Plan for Change.”

It comes soon after the launch of the government’s 10 Year Health Plan for England, which could require large hospitality businesses to report on how much healthy food they sell.

UKHospitality has subsequently called for greater clarity on the legislation to prevent further “red tape and costs” being added to the hospitality industry.

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