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Jamie Oliver releases second school food manifesto
Released 26/10/2011
Oliver’s Ministry of Food launches its second food manifesto and is given the backing of the Food for Life Partnership charity
The manifesto argues that poor eating in schools and at home is part of the vicious cycle of disadvantage (Photo source: Scandic Hotels Flickr page)
A second food manifesto has been released by TV chef Jamie Oliver to promote healthy eating in schools and narrow the health and education gap between wealthy and disadvantaged children in the UK.
The manifesto has also been given the backing of the Food for Life Partnership, a charity that works with over 4,000 schools to promote healthy and sustainable eating across the country.
The document, primarily aimed at politicians, contains an array of statistics and arguments geared toward persuading the government to increase funding for school meals and food education.
Academies and the DfE
Oliver argues that the academies movement is an opportunity to increase the impact of healthy food in schools stating that it would be “incredibly disappointing and counterproductive not to make them mandatory for new academies too”.
In a recent interview with the Guardian Oliver expressed his concerns about the future of the support for his campaign from the coalition, and, in particular the Department for Education.
"Honestly, I'm very worried,” he said. “I've had a couple of very cordial, interesting meetings with the secretary of state for education and although I would love to believe that Mr Gove has school food high on his agenda, I've not heard anything so far worth celebrating.”
The manifesto argues that poor eating in schools and at home is part of the vicious cycle of disadvantage that stops so many children from fulfilling their potential in later years.
According to the statistics presented in the manifesto, only 44% of primary school pupils and 38% of secondary pupils are eating healthy school lunches while a fifth of children who are entitled to free school meals via the pupil premium are not eating them altogether.
Food for Life
The new manifesto is backed by the Food for Life Partnership, which argues for the implementation of a ‘school food premium’ that they believe “would give headteachers the incentive they need to improve their dining rooms and offer practical food education”.
The charity believes that an increased take-up of school meals would reduce the cost of providing them, and if school meals became the norm that it would “close the gap for the disadvantaged children that need them most – payment-by-results is the key to solving the school meal crisis once and for all”.
Read Oliver’s recommendations to the government here