SCHOOL MEALS
Corporate Watch
September 2005
6. Resistance and alternatives
Interest around school meals has been growing over the last few years, and has mushroomed in the first half of 2005. With this interest have come many positive initiatives from, amongst others, schools working by themselves, parents and pupils, campaigning groups, and the government. These responses have so far been characterised by a piecemeal nature focusing on individual initiatives and schools.[1] This is because schools are being given more autonomy, which gives them the option of running a self-managed service by opting out of LEA contracts. This is what many schools have done, and often constitutes a very positive change in the meals provision in those schools. But it is at this level that significant change has occurred, not at the level of the cost-driven decisions of how LEA contracts are awarded, or with a questioning of the privatised system.
The Health Education Trust's 'Best in Class' scheme, 'to recognise best practice' in catering, lists a number of schools that have opted out of LEA contracts, and developed kitchen facilities for in-house provision.[2] One such school is Lethbridge Primary School where parents set up a scheme called Let's Do Lunch ltd in partnership with local Sheepdrove Organic Farm to replace the previous system.[3] Subsequently take-up increased from an average of under 50 to a peak of 260 children. Apparently the amount spent on ingredients per child has doubled without the price of meals increasing.[4]
Food for Life
The Soil Association has set up a pilot project, 'Food For Life,' to introduce better menus in a number of primary schools involving a level of 'quantitative nutritional standards' rather than the government's food-groups based guidelines, a minimum of 50% local sourcing and 30% organic sourcing, as well as 75% 'prepared from unprocessed ingredients.'[5] In pilot schools described, the quality of food has been succesfully improved through increasing local sourcing and use of fresh ingredients, and uptake of meals has increased.[6] Food For Life has been influential beyond this: the Soil Association has provided advice and information to 300 schools, some LEAs, and parents and teachers.[7] It also encourages the government to take on board the benefits the pilot scheme has brought and make its standards statutory regulations.
Jeanette Orrey
Jeanette Orrey, catering manager at St Peter's Primary School in Nottinghamshire, restored in-house catering at her school in 2000. She subsequently pioneered the sourcing of local and fresh ingredients, including signing up to Eostre Organics, a producers' and fair trade co-operative.[8] Significantly, cost of ingredients has risen to 60-70p, but the charges have stayed the same. Presumably because there is no private company to extract takings, the meals service is making a profit, which is reinvested in cooking facilities.[9] Jeanette became heavily involved in the Food For Life programme, and it was Jeanette's influence that inspired Jamie Oliver's 2005 television series. In 2005 Jeanette worked with the Soil Association and Ashlyn Farm, an organic farm in Essex, to set up a training kitchen for school cooks.[10]
Jamie's Schools
Another school meals personality, of course, is Jamie Oliver, whose TV series 'Jamie's School Dinners' in February and March 2005 pushed the issue into political focus. The amount of coverage it brought the issue receive was a huge achievement, pushing the government to respond, for example promising higher spending on ingredients, in the run up to the May 2005 general election. However, the programmes could perhaps have gone further in highlighting the problems with the privatised system and more general issues of growing corporate power in state education. Jamie is no enemy of corporate influence over food production and health: he has an annual advertising deal with Sainsbury's worth £1.2 million,[11] making him 'the face of Sainsbury's'.[12] A less corporate-friendly approach may have been more aware of the damaging role supermarkets have played in undermining our food culture and steering the shift towards poor quality, mass-produced food.
| Case study from the London Borough of Camden As seen above, Camden has a contract with Scolarest, whose school meals provision in the borough attracted a lot of complaints. In the context of growing dissatisfaction and increasing possibilities for schools to opt out of LEAs' contracts, a few schools in Camden have succeeded in opting out of the Scolarest contract. Firstly, South Camden Community School in Somers Town returned to in-house catering after head-teacher Rosemary Leeke judged the quality of food provided by Scolarest insubstantial.[13] Brookfield Primary School in Highgate also returned to in-house catering after complaints about Scolarest and the formation by parents of a School Nutrition Action Group, and Scolarest's refusal to include fresh vegetables in the menu. Quality has improved and uptake has risen to 70%, with pupils charged only 5p extra.[14] Parliament Hill School has also opted out of the contract.[15] However, the vast majority of the Borough's schools remain with Scolarest, amidst increasing numbers of complaints by parents that the food is not improving, and a Town Hall report finding that food failed to meet basic nutritional standards.[16] |
Public sector procurement
According to a Cardiff University report, public sector procurement could be a powerful government tool to benefit consumers and producers through good quality local and organic ingredients. The 2002 Curry Policy Commission encourages local authorities to use their prerogatives to specify such sourcing. However, public sector catering, despite feeding the young, elderly and ill, often consists of poor quality, cost-driven food, according to the report, 'a totally unacceptable situation, morally and economically,' needing 'immediate attention by government.' [17]Food Links groups have been set up to encourage local producers and food networks. These advocate public sector local sourcing, in particular for school meals.[18] The Yorkshire based Grassroots Food Network worked with Bradford Education Contract Services on a Public Sector Food Procurement Initiative, to improve quality and reduce costs and food miles by encouraging local tendering, a local supplier network, and increasing local and seasonal ingredients, at schools in Bradford. It successfully awarded a contract to supply fresh meat to a local butcher, replacing a New Zealand based frozen meat supplier.[19] A local sourcing trial in Oxfordshire resulted in improved quality, 20% lower costs, benefits to the local economy and a 70% reduction in food miles.[20] The implication of such projects is that the benefits of local procurement are only fully achieved through increasing buying from small and local producers, which cuts out the involvement of centralised multinational corporations.
But there are substantial barriers to this. At the EU level, the Treaty of Rome stipulates non-discrimination on grounds of nationality, which works against favouring local producers.[21] Existing infrastructure favours big businesses which transport standardised goods through a centralised system. Somerset Food Links' attempt to encourage local procurement met with EU and local government regulatory barriers as well as a catering culture predisposed to dealing with large suppliers.[22] Powys Food Links' failure to get past regulations resulted in its alliance with Cardiff University and the Soil Association to create the Powys Public Procurement Partnership (4P Project) to study public procurement at local and national level, and demonstrate its representation of best value in the NHS and LEAs.[23]
Despite EU regulations and disadvantageous infrastructure, in some European countries these barriers are being overcome. The Italian government, approaching school food as part of a joined up policy dealing with health, education, the environment and agriculture, rather than a profit-making venture, promoted use of organic produce in the public sector through a 1999 law as a result of which organic meals are now provided for 100,000 children. Services have in some cases been awarded to not-for-profit organisations run by parents, rather than companies.[24] In Sweden, some municipalities created independent distribution centres to remove a major advantage multinationals had over local businesses.[25] Such changes could also occur in the UK. In Wales, the Welsh Assembley has taken on a duty unique in the UK to base policies on sustainability, and through the Welsh Procurement Initiative is working against legal barriers to encourage radically new supplier structures including co-operatives and supplier associations. [26]
| What has been achieved in these European examples? |
To ensure the growth of local procurement in this sector, state intervention is needed to challenge the dominance of multinational companies, to create a level playing field, and to encourage better ways to get food to schools. It should also regulate marketing opportunities in schools. This requires a shift of ideology so that healthy food is once more seen as a part of a state education system and 'state intervention in food choice'. Kevin Morgan and Adrian Morley, whose Cardiff University report suggests 'local food chain mobilisation' through Regional Development Agencies, suggest that
'In our model of sustainable development, the school meal becomes a prism through which we should design healthy eating for young people, create local markets for local producers, and secure lower food miles for us all.'[28]
References
[1] Kevin Morgan & Adrian Morley, 'Relocalising the food chain: the role of creative public procurement' The Regeneration Unit, Cardiff University www.organic.aber.ac.uk/library/RelocalisingProcurement.pdf p.46 (viewed 03.08.2005)
[2] Independent National Database of Information on Catering Excellence in Schools, 'Best in class'
www.healthedtrust.com/indicates/exgoodprc.htm (viewed 06.09.05)
[3] Sheepdrove Organic Farm, 'Sheepdrove Supports Healthy Meals in Schools', 08.03.05, www.sheepdrove.com/news_archive.asp?news_id=34&strand;_id=1, (viewed 25.04.05)
[4] BBC website, Our Story:How we rescued school dinners', 01.04.05, www.bbc.co.uk/dna/ican/A3584432, (viewed 25.04.05)
[5] The Soil Association, 'Food for Life: Do our children need healthy food?'
www.soilassociation.org/web/sa/saweb.nsf/9f788a2d1160a9e580256a71002a3d2b/65a3b4988446e96280256db400380e4c/$FILE/Healthy%20local%20organic%20school%20meals.pdf p.25-7 (viewed 27.09.2005)
[6] ibid. p.70-76
[7] Soil Association Press Release, 'New training kitchen to help school cooks deliver healthier meals', 25.05.05 www.soilassociation.org/web/sa/saweb.nsf/848d689047cb466780256a6b00298980/a205f80028427db98025700a00585150!OpenDocument (viewed 05.08.2005)
[8] Soil Association Press Release, 'New training kitchen to help school cooks deliver healthier meals', 25.05.05 www.soilassociation.org/web/sa/saweb.nsf/848d689047cb466780256a6b00298980/a205f80028427db98025700a00585150!OpenDocument (viewed 05.08.2005);
The Soil Association, 'Food for Life: Do our children need healthy food?'
www.soilassociation.org/web/sa/saweb.nsf/9f788a2d1160a9e580256a71002a3d2b/65a3b4988446e96280256db400380e4c/$FILE/Healthy%20local%20organic%20school%20meals.pdf p.70-76 (viewed 27.09.2005)
[9] Soil Association, 'Organic school dinners: please miss can we have some more?' 14.04.04 www.soilassociation.org/web/sa/saweb.nsf/0/80256cad0046ee0c80256d0500565a30?OpenDocument (viewed 05.08.2005)
[10] Soil Association Press Release, 'New training kitchen to help school cooks deliver healthier meals', 25.05.05 www.soilassociation.org/web/sa/saweb.nsf/848d689047cb466780256a6b00298980/a205f80028427db98025700a00585150!OpenDocument (viewed 05.08.2005)
[11]Andrew Walker, BBC News Profile: Jamie Oliver, 30.03.05 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4394025.stm (viewed 06.09.05)
[12] Jamie Oliver's website, 'about me', www.jamieoliver.com/about/timeline/ (viewed 06.09.2005)
[13] Kim Janssen and Richard Osley, 'Lunch firm is dumped by schools,' Camden New Journal 09.09.2004 www.camdennewjournal.co.uk/2004%20archive/090904/n090904_1.htm (viewed 27.09.2005)
[14] Caitlin Davies, 'Goodbye chips and burgers,' The Independent 03.03.2005 http://education.independent.co.uk/schools/article4355.ece (viewed 27.09.2005);
Information from the school's website about the scheme: www.brookfield.camden.sch.uk/shtml/dinner.shtml (viewed 27.09.2005);
Information about the state of food under the Scolarest contract from the school's 2003 annual report: www.brookfield.camden.sch.uk/shtml/downloads/annualreport2003forweb.pdf (viewed 27.09.2005)
[15] Caroline McClatchey, 'Mice and banned food in the kitchen,' Hampstead and Highgate 29.04.05 www.hamhigh.co.uk/search/story.aspx?brand=Northlondon24&category;=Newshamhigh&itemid;=WeED28%20Apr%202005%2016:11:32:337&tBrand;=Northlondon24&tCategory;=search (viewed 27.09.2005)
[16] Kim Jannsen, 'Official: Dinners Fail Kids,' Camden New Journal 04.03.05 www.camdennewjournal.co.uk/030305/n030305_01.htm (viewed 04.8.2005)
[17] Kevin Morgan & Adrian Morley, 'Relocalising the food chain: the role of creative public procurement' The Regeneration Unit, Cardiff University www.organic.aber.ac.uk/library/RelocalisingProcurement.pdf p.20-21 (viewed 03.08.2005)
[18] Food Links UK: Members www.foodlinks-uk.org/fluk_membs.asp (viewed 27.09.2005)
[19] Public sector food procurement initiative - www.grassroots.uk.net/psfpi/CaseStudy.shtml (viewed 04.08.2005)
[20] Local Food Works, 15.07.05, 'School dinners using local food bring benefits but there isn't enough for everyone,' www.localfoodworks.org/web/sa/saweb.nsf/852110a4ab95e1cd80256c320058e66e/b2ec0f17a3e8c44b8025703f0056fbac!OpenDocument viewed (06.08.2005)
[21] Kevin Morgan & Adrian Morley, 'Relocalising the food chain: the role of creative public procurement' The Regeneration Unit, Cardiff University www.organic.aber.ac.uk/library/RelocalisingProcurement.pdf p.26-27 viewed (03.08.2005)
[22] ibid.
[23] Powys Food Links, http://foodlinks.powys.gov.uk/ ;
Soil Association, www.soilassociation.org/web/sa/saweb.nsf/0/b2083093ab250f4680256dce00350223?OpenDocument (viewed 27.09.2005);
Kevin Morgan & Adrian Morley, 'Relocalising the food chain: the role of creative public procurement' The Regeneration Unit, Cardiff University www.organic.aber.ac.uk/library/RelocalisingProcurement.pdf p.3 (viewed 27.09.2005)
[24] ibid. p.37
[25] ibid. p.34
[26] ibid. p.65-6
[27] ibid. p.40-41
[28] ibid. p.48-9