Food for Life Partnership

• Training for school cooks
• Food for Life Catering Mark
• Food quality and provenance events

Transform your catering

School meals are changing. Leading school meal providers are lining up to launch freshly prepared, local and organic menus that support our award scheme for schools.

In 2008, take-up in our award-winning schools increased by a whopping 16%, great news amidst a backdrop of headlines highlighting the decline in national take-up figures.

Caterers can apply to the Soil Association for a Food for Life Catering Mark, at Bronze, Silver and Gold levels.

Seasonal vegetables to help you meet the nutrient standards

A quick guide for schools

Serving up in-season, fresh produce from the school garden or local farm is the best possible way to get pupils eating their veg, and it helps reduce the school’s climate change footprint too. And when it comes to the nutrient standards for schools, iron and folate are often the toughest to meet. These resources will show you which seasonal vegetables are your best sources of iron and folate for every month of the year. Our detailed booklet will help you to make seasonal swaps within the nutrient standards.

School cooks hold the key

It's not just about the food on the plate, schools meals are a vital education service. School cooks are the front line in the school meal quality revolution and can help to improve pupils eating habits in the dining hall.

Famous dinner lady Jeanette Orrey advises the Food for Life Partnership. Her pioneering work as a dinner lady at St Peter’s Primary, near Nottingham, inspired Jamie Oliver back in 2003, and led to the development of the Food for Life targets.

School cooks hold the key to transforming the quality of school meals in this country. For too long, many cooks were reduced to opening packets and reheating frozen ready meals, while their skills in fresh food preparation fell into disuse.

Many cooks are excited about the prospect of returning back to ‘home cooking’ but for others this is a daunting prospect. Whatever happens, the cook needs the support of the school and caterer to make the changes people want to see.

Find out about the many opportunities emerging for training for school cooks.