More flexibility called for with regard to healthy school meals
Fergus Chambers, the head of the catering company that provides school meals in Glasgow, called for caterers to be given more “flexibility” on healthy-eating rules and guidelines, which he said, were only resulting in funnelling “kids into the hands of fast food shops, chippies and snack vans”.
Whilst he didn’t deny that the Government’s healthy eating guidelines are “a good thing”, he insisted that rules needed to be more considerate of children’s dietary preferences, to stop them foregoing school meals altogether.
Under Scottish law, school meals must now contain only minimal levels of fat, salt and sugar. Chambers said that denying children altogether was only helping to boost the trade of fast-food outlets, who are “only too willing to cash in” on disgruntled childrens’ cravings.
Mr Chambers was speaking at the ‘Bringing lasting change to Scotland’s diet’ conference at the University of Glasgow’s Faculty of Medicine. He revealed there that the uptake of school meals in the city has fallen to an average of just 38 per cent, with some schools’ figures as low as 24 per cent.
He added “I absolutely appreciate and accept that the Scottish diet, with its high levels of fat, salt and sugar, had to be addressed and that the Food Standards Agency Scotland has been moving in the right direction. But I also now believe that the most recent rules, which allow no flexibility to those providing school meals, have fallen victim to the Law of Unintended Consequences. We are attempting to compete with the lunchtime fast food industry with at least one hand tied behind our backs.”
