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Schools: Food

Asked by Sir John HayesConservativeDepartment for EducationTabled Answered 15 December 2025UIN 85090

The question

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what information her Department holds on the proportion of food served in state schools in England that is sourced from British (a) farms and (b) other food producers.

Answered by Olivia Bailey

Schools are responsible for their school meals service and how and where they choose to buy their produce. We encourage schools to provide a wide range of foods using fresh, sustainable locally sourced, seasonal ingredients including produce from the school vegetable garden where possible.

Alongside this, we encourage schools to follow the Government Buying Standard for food and catering, which includes advice around procurement and sustainable sourcing of produce.

We aim to revise the School Food Standards and are engaging with stakeholders to ensure they support our work to create the healthiest generation of children in history and will be consulting publicly in due course. As part of this work, we will review our guidance on sourcing good quality produce.

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