T
he ramifications of a good school lunch go far beyond a productive afternoon. Research shows that children who eat healthy, free school
meals have lower obesity rates, better academic performance and behavior and improved lifetime productivity and earnings. According to a study from Impact on Urban Health, expanding free school meals could inject up to £41.3bn into the UK economy. Te London Borough of Tower Hamlets is putting that theory to the test. When Mayor Lutfur Rahman ran in 2022, he made it one of his key election pledges to guarantee all 11-16 year old pupils in his borough a healthy free school meal, every day. Just nine months after the project was launched, it became a reality. Te speed of the project belied its complexity, according to Glenn Campbell FCSI, founder and MD of education catering consultancy Cohesion Consulting, which was brought on to help support the council in devising, developing and delivering the catering solution. In early 2023 Cohesion joined a multi-
disciplinary project board, formed by Tower Hamlets leaders to manage the project and made up of experts in public health, children’s services, education and food policy. For Campbell, who worked on the project with associate director and FCSI Senior Associate Aidan Ross, this approach was crucial.
BEYOND EXPECTATIONS
“Initially there was a perception on the board that primary and secondary schools worked the same way when it came to school feeding, but they are completely different. With secondary schools, you have to sell the food as well and serve it ‒ it’s a much more interactive and harder model to operate,” he explains. “We were able to help them understand right from the outset that there was a lot more complexity and nuance to the project than they had first thought.” Complexity was increased by the
fact that Tower Hamlets is an area of considerable deprivation, with 47% of
children living in poverty. Cohesion also discovered that from a total of 37,000 students, free school meals eligibility had previously only been 51%. And of that 51%, only 50% were taking their free school meal allowance regularly. Tower Hamlets clearly needed to go big on its engagement strategy.
BEYOND EXPECTATIONS
After combining the information they had gleaned on uptake and buying behaviors with an evaluation of the current capacity and service style in 20 school kitchens in Tower Hamlets, Cohesion created a gap analysis on catering equipment, till points and staffing levels – and set to work filling them. Kitchen capacity was increased with outdoor serving areas and extra till points. £660,000 worth of state-of-the- art equipment, including bratt pans and combi ovens, was procured and installed to increase capacity within the same footprint and minimize operating costs, as well as transforming cookery production methods to become easier, faster and less intensive for staff. Chefs were also trained on the new kit. In addition, Cohesion worked closely with the school caterers to develop a ‘less is more’ approach to menu development, improving food quality and further increasing efficiency and speed of service for pupils. “Most secondary schools are generally
around about 55-60% meal uptake. Te project was completed in September 2023 and most of the Tower Hamlets schools are now at 75%,” Campbell says. His hope now is that other councils will follow suit. “Childhood obesity is at an all-time
high. Poverty is an all-time high. We’ve never had more food banks in the country. And projects like this are essential for safeguarding the nation’s future,” he concludes. “Tey eat well, they’ll learn well, they’ve got better life chances. Tose better life chances translate to higher salaries, better jobs and less stress. A good school lunch has a huge impact and it’s something we should be focusing on.”
Cohesion Consulting oversaw the project to provide nutritious school meals from start to finish
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