Truss urged to take immediate action on school meals

Helen Browning, Chief Executive of the Soil Association, has written open letter to Liz Truss, asking for the immediate implementation of universal free school meals for all Key Stage Two children across England.

The letter asks for Liz Truss to back the association's vision of a future where everyone has access to affordable, healthy and nutritious diets, underpinned by a resilient food system that protects nature and climate.

As well as the expansion of free school meals, the letter calls for the immediate increase in funding for school meals, so that caterers are not forced to cut standards with ingredients that undercut British farmers, as part of a wider package of reforms to school food policy.
    
It also asks that the hundreds of millions spent on school food is spent on British, sustainable farm produce, with the revised buying standards introduced at the earliest opportunity.
    
The letter asks that the government also works with the Soil Association’s Food for Life scheme to roll out a “whole-school approach” to food that promotes healthy, sustainable food, and food education from an early age.