A powerful film featuring young food campaigners and actor Emma Thompson is calling for urgent action to improve school food in 2026.
The Lunch They Deserve seeks to focus the nation on the need for better standards given 4.5 million children in the UK are growing up in poverty and for many of them a healthy diet is unaffordable.
School meals have the potential to ensure these young people have access to a nutritious, hot meal that will help to keep them healthy.
The film, created by multi-Bafta winning animators The Tin Bear Project, includes the voices of four young people from across the UK with lived experience of food insecurity, including Nausheen, 15, from Northern Ireland, 15-year-old Rylee from Somerset, Emmanuela, 17, from London, and Adama, also 17, from Newcastle.
Durham County Council’s School Meals Team are unique nationally as we work closely with schools and contractors both within the Local Authority and regionally to ensure that School Food Standards are met and monitored throughout the year via the purchase of a Service Level Agreement (SLA).
An SLA is required by all schools within the Primary School Meals contract to ensure that the awarded contractor is following all areas within the contract and are adhering to School Food Standards. Schools have a dedicated catering support officer to monitor the contract/ service as well as providing advice and guidance.
SLAs are also available for schools that either employ their own catering staff or use an alternative contractor. This enables schools to provide popular, high quality and healthy meals which meet School Food Standards. The support provided aids in menu planning, medical diets, monitoring and advice and guidance.
Officers attend school/student nutrition action group (SNAG) meetings with children of all ages to hear feedback from source. They also liaise with teams from Public Health, REfUSE, Environmental Health, Health & Safety and all other relevant groups. They attend regional meetings from relevant organisations to ensure they are kept abreast with the most up to date information.
For more details of SLAs or advice and guidance that’s available please contact us.