We want to see a school food system that delivers for every child, so that:
- every child eats nutritious, delicious and sustainable food during their time at school
- every child leaves school with an informed and positive relationship with food
- We campaign for a better school food system
- We support schools, local authorities and MATs to improve food in schools
- We teach children and young people about cooking, growing and enjoying food for their health and happiness
1. Equity
A school food system that doesn’t work for every child, doesn’t work. Every child has a right to nutritious, delicious and sustainable food.
2. Joy
Food is joyful. We allow this joy to bring curiosity and creativity to our work in schools. We nurture our team so we can share our love of good food with the communities we serve.
3. Optimism
Things can be better for children and young people, and change is possible. Optimism gives us the energy and space to explore every possibility.
4. Tenacity
We are unbending in our vision for children and young people. We will dig deep and be unafraid to tackle the complexity of the school food system.
5. Evidence-based
We value the information and data we gather through our hands-on work in schools and MATs, and this evidence informs our national campaigning.
6. Openness
Challenge brings new ideas and perspectives to our work. We value fresh opinions and voices, from both inside and outside of our organisation, and we respond nimbly to new opportunities, challenges, or evidence.
7. Committed to partnership
We recognise that we are stronger together. We work in partnership to share resources, skills and learning.
8. Independence
We will not work with partners or funders who could compromise, or appear to compromise, the pursuit of our vision.
Every child should have the nutrition they need to thrive. Yet, right now, children’s health and wellbeing is too dependent on where they live. The current school food system isn’t working, but we have the opportunity to redesign it into one that works for every child. The government’s universal primary school breakfast programme provides a springboard for action on food across the whole school day.
Over the next five years we will
- Bring about reform to increase access, improve quality and secure adequate funding for school meals
- Recentre school food as a key public health intervention in the minds of national and local decision makers
- Change the narrative on children’s poor nutrition from individual choice to health inequality
- Amplify the voices of teachers and children so that their experiences inform our policy positions
- Continue to work in coalition with campaign partners to impact national policy
- Collaborate on research that supports our advocacy efforts
- Expand our policy, campaigns and communications capacity
- Establish teacher, parent and pupil panels to guide and inform our work
School Food Matters has already expanded its food education offer across England, with schools in 14 new cities now enjoying our programmes. After five years testing our school food transformation programmes in London schools, it’s time to test our approach in schools, local authorities and MATs, outside the capital. To do this we must build our network and invest in our head office ready for scale.
Over the next five years we will
- Build a network of project partners across England
- Secure multi-year, core funding to invest in an effective and fully functioning head office
- Embrace technology to make our office processes work better
- Share resources, information and learning between teams
- Through our network, recruit project delivery teams outside London, making the most of local talent and expertise
- Focus our fundraising efforts on unrestricted core funding from trusts and foundations and attract public donations at a high-profile event to mark our 20th birthday in 2027
- Research, test and establish cloud-based finance and HR systems, resilient to cyber-attacks
- Embed a series of whole team lunch and learns, regular cross-team meetings and training to support new IT systems to help us work more effectively across the charity
Local authorities and MATs, have the power but lack the resource and expertise to transform school food and deliver food education. School Food Matters has the knowhow but lacks the local mandate. By working together, we can effect positive change in schools across the country.
Over the next five years we will
- Work with 25 local authorities or MATs, outside London
- Capitalise on the reach and influence of local authorities and MATs, within the local school food system
- Deepen collaboration with national and local partners that work within schools and community organisations
- Use lessons learned from working in partnership with local authorities and MATs in a variety of socio-economic settings to provide evidence to inform our campaigns and advocacy
- Develop and test our school food and food education package in six local authorities or MATs, across the country, to further refine our offer
- Prioritise work that supports deeper partnerships with like-minded national charities, local organisations and food partnerships
- Use our campaigns and communications expertise to take lessons learned from regional programmes to show local, national and global audiences that school food transformation is possible when you take a whole- systems approach
- Make the case for government funding to establish School Food Improvement Officers in every local authority
We want children to leave school with an informed and positive relationship with food. Every child should be able to learn how to cook nutritious meals and understand where food comes from. Despite being on the national curriculum since 2014, delivery of food education is patchy, and schools lack the funding and expertise to make lessons engaging and meaningful.
Over the next five years we will
- Deliver our flagship programmes in ten new cities outside London
- Join forces with other food educators to establish the Food Education Network, a campaign coalition to drive policy change
- Use our impact data and stories from our national programmes to inform our advocacy
- Develop our programmes to maximise the impact of our food education offer
- Train and develop local project officers to deliver our food education programmes within their communities
- Share our learning to raise up the work of smaller, hyper- local, and culturally specific organisations working to similar goals
- Collaborate with academics to improve the evidence base supporting food education, to inform both government policy
and our own practice in schools - Develop and share resources to enable school communities across the country to establish their own cooking,
growing and food enterprise programmes
Since 2020, we have been working hard to create food environments in schools which put children’s health first. By working across the whole school community, from parents and catering staff to school governors and students, we have made changes to school food policies and practices which have withstood the test of time. Yet even in schools where children’s health is prioritised, senior leaders can be locked into catering contracts which result in poor quality and unappealing food. Together we can remove these blocks and unlock the potential of the school food offer in every school.
Over the next five years we will
- Increase our direct work with caterers, kitchens and club providers to improve the quality of food served throughout the school day
- Empower local authorities, MATs and schools to work alongside caterers to drive up the quality of school meals
- Provide support to parents and students to take an active role in improving the food at their school
- Establish a clear roadmap for improving food in secondary and SEND (special educational needs and disabilities) schools, and use this to transform the food environment in all education settings
- Make procurement and contract management a priority focus of our work by adding a catering consultant to our team
- With expertise in-house, become a national hub for training, support and resources to enable local authorities, MATs and school leaders to push for better quality school food
- Use our teacher, parent and pupil panels to inform our offer
- Deepen our understanding and expertise in securing good food in secondary and SEND schools by working with sector partners