Sheffield charity backs call to close school food standards loophole

The LGA says a loophole which means almost 2,500 schools don’t have to follow the legislation must be closed in the forthcoming childhood obesity strategy.

Children’s Food Trust CEO, Linda Cregan, said: “Every child has the same right to healthy food at school. This has always been a nonsense loophole and is very simple to fix. There shouldn’t be one rule on food for some schools and another rule for the rest – it’s basic stuff to protect children’s health: we expect every school to make sure kids are wearing their seatbelts on the school minibus. So shouldn’t we also expect every school to serve food that’s healthy?

“Evidence shows regulation helps to improve the food schools serve and the food that children actually eat at school, where voluntary guidelines saw those things deteriorate. And when children eat better, they do better – so it’s just common sense.”