Suppliers to the public sector could benefit from calls to collectively monitor nutrition and catering across the wider public procurement sector, including hospitals, prisons and schools.
Nutritionists and school food campaigners yesterday called for a new watchdog for all public sector food. They met ata forum to discuss implementation of the School Food Plan, which will give schoolchildren aged between five and seven free school lunches, as of 1 September 2014.
Many voiced concerns about the short timeframe to put the new Plan in place, as some schools may struggle with the funding and equipment to provide free school meals before the start of the new term.
Lindsay Graham, school food and health advisor, suggested a better media campaign, an official public health statement and a separate body to monitor public food would make the step easier.
She said this new regulatory body should monitor public sector food, starting with schools, but also incorporating other areas to improve nutrition education and tackle obesity on a wider scale.
Alison Nelson, commissioning manager of the Food for Life Partnership, run by the Soil Association, said the Food for Life Catering Mark is now looking to work with other settings of public food to influence work places in the way they use and prepare food. “This is how to get real systems change. We must get all public procurement sectors in a local authority involved to then drive real change.”
Nelson also emphasised how the Catering Mark, which provides a database to link schools with local suppliers for seasonal or organic produce, boosts the local economy. She said: “For every £1 that goes into a menu, £3 goes back into the local economy.”
Co-ordinator for the Children’s Food Campaign, part of the sustainable farming group Sustain, Malcolm Clark, said public procurement should be about bringing together different strands of healthy eating. “We would like to see a separate body for public sector procurement,” he said.
The new School Food Plan will also ensure cooking and food nutrition is a compulsory part of the national curriculum. However this was met with concerns that it would only be loosely followed, and could be sacrificed for more ‘academic’ subjects at a headteacher’s discretion.
