School Food Matters, UK

Targets & measures

The mission of "School Food Matters" is to ensure that every child enjoys fresh sustainable food at school and understands where their food comes from.

To achieve this the Organisation listens to schools, parents and children. It urges local authorities to improve school meals and to support food education through cooking, growing and links with local farms.

• School Food Matters aims to influence change at grass-roots Level.
• It frequently partners with other organisations that share similar goals eg. Sustain, Food for Life Partnership and Children's Food Trust
• Its strength is working in depth, in one or two areas at a time, with parents, head teachers, local authority officers and others to create and implement changes to school meals and to support food education.
• School Food Matters participates in several regional and national policy steering groups dealing with school food issues.

The organisation is currently campaigning on school food standards.

Interaction and knowledge brokering activities

Civil society – School Food Matters is a registered charity

• Parents
• School children

Practitioners – schools
Policy makers – local authorities

Initiation

School Food Matters was founded in 2007 by parent Stephanie Wood, inspired by environmentalist Zac Goldsmith, now Conservative MP for Richmond Park.  At the time the campaign was looking specifically at the school meal service for primary schools in the London Borough of Richmond. The quest was to actively engage parents and head teachers about the quality and delivery of school meals and to help provide a better model to the Local Authority.

Funding

Projects, donations and school memberships