New nutritional standards for school meals and other food in schools - background information
In December 2001 the Department released the consultation document Catering for Healthier Lifestyles PDF 1.46 MB which set out new compulsory nutritional standards for school meals.
Our analysis of the responses received showed that there was widespread support for the principles underpinning the revised nutritional standards. However, service providers, particularly in the secondary sector, pointed out that removing certain foods from school menus, or restricting their availability, could have potentially negative effects on the school meals service as a whole. In particular, some concern was expressed about the future employment prospects of catering staff working in the service. It was therefore agreed at the time that it would be advisable to consult further with service providers before introducing the standards.
Following agreement with the five Education and Library Boards (ELBs) it was decided to convene a small working group to take forward the introduction of a pilot scheme to test the reaction to the revised nutritional standards. The membership of the group includes representatives from the Department, the ELBs and the Health sector.
Around 100 schools took part in the pilot which ran from March 2004 to March 2005. PricewaterhouseCoopers was commissioned by the Department to carry out an evaluation and you can view their report entitled Evaluation of the Pilot of the 'Catering for Healthier Lifestyles Standards' in Northern Ireland PDF 1.40 MB.
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The pilot was successful, proving that the new standards could be implemented without any significant detrimental effect on the school meals service. Therefore, the Department, in conjunction with the ELBs and other school authorities, began to introduce new nutritional standards to schools during the autumn 2005 term as outlined in the consultation document.
In 2006 the Department consulted on proposals for new, updated, nutritional standards for school meals and extended the initiative to include other food in schools (vending machines, tuck shops, etc.). You can view the consultation document as either a PDF:
or as a Word document:
Further information relating to the consultation can be found on our New nutritional standards - consultation page.
Following the consultation exercise, the Department worked with health and catering professionals to finalise the standards. The updated standards were issued to schools in June 2007 and came into effect from September 2007. The standards were further updated in February 2008 to clarify some aspects and provide additional guidance for schools. You may access the February 2008 standards document as either a PDF:
or as a Word document:
Catering for Healthier Lifestyles will be updated in due course to take account of the new standards.
Additional funding has been made available to ELBs and individual voluntary grammar and grant-maintained integrated schools to improve the quality of food in schools. The funding is mostly being used to ensure that the food content value of school meals is:
- a minimum of 50p in nursery, primary and special schools; and
- a minimum of 60p in post-primary schools.
The remainder will support the implementation of the standards, including:
- the recruitment of Nutritional Co-ordinators to advise schools: and
- training arrangements for the many hundreds of canteen staff.
Also, from the 2006/07 school year, the Education and Training Inspectorate has begun evaluating the nutritional quality of meals in schools and examining schools' general approaches to promoting healthy eating.
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