The Education (Nutritional Standards and Requirements for School Food) (England) Regulations 2007

Regulations 5 and 6

SCHEDULE 3 Nutritional standards and requirements applying to school lunches in maintained schools from 1st September 2008 (primary schools) and 1st September 2009 (secondary schools, special schools and pupil referral units)

PART 1 Food requirements

1.  Not less than two portions each day must be provided of food from group A, at least one of which must be salad, vegetables or vegetable juice and at least one of which must be fruit, fruit salad or fruit juice.

2.  Oily fish must be provided at least once every three weeks.

3.—(1) A portion of food from each of the subdivisions in group C may not be provided more often than once every two weeks.

(2) Any shaped product comprising a mixture of meat and other ingredients which is not included in the reserved descriptions specified in Schedule 2 to the Meat Products Regulations may only be provided if it complies with the meat content requirements for “Burger” in that Schedule.

(3) No meat product shall be provided if it contains any carcase part listed in regulation 6(2) of the Meat Products Regulations, subject to the exception in regulation 6(3) of those Regulations.

(4) No economy burgers as defined in Schedule 2 to the Meat Products Regulations shall be provided.

4.  A food in group D cooked in fat or oil must not be provided on more than three days in a week.

5.  A type of bread with no added fat or oil must be provided every day.

6.  No drinks other than those included in group F may be provided, except that whole milk may be provided for pupils up to the end of the school year in which they attain the age of five.

7.  No more than two portions in each week may consist of food which has been deep-fried in the cooking or manufacturing process.

8.  No confectionery or snacks may be provided except snacks which consist of –

(a) nuts, seeds, fruit or vegetables with no added salt, sugar, honey or fat (except that dried fruit may contain no more than 0.5% vegetable oil as a glazing agent); or

(b) savoury crackers or bread sticks which are served with food from group A or group E.

9.  Cakes and biscuits must not contain any confectionery.

10.—(1) No salt shall be available to add to food after the cooking process is complete.

(2) Other condiments may be available to pupils only in individual sachets or individual portions of no more than 10 grams or one teaspoonful.

PART 2 Nutritional standards

11.  In this Part—

“average school lunch” has the meaning given by paragraph 13 below;

“menu cycle” means a plan of menus for school lunches lasting for no less than one and no more than four consecutive weeks during a term;

“non-milk extrinsic sugars” means any sugar which is not contained within cell walls, except lactose in milk and milk products;

“nutrient” means any substance listed in the table in paragraph 14 below.

12.  There shall be excluded from the calculations required by this Schedule any bread provided by virtue of paragraph 5 of part 1 of this Schedule.

13.  The average school lunch for a school must be calculated by totalling the amounts of energy and nutrients provided by all school lunches in a menu cycle, and then dividing that total by the estimated number of school lunches served to individual pupils during that menu cycle.

14.  The average school lunch must provide –

(a) an amount of energy which shall be either the figure shown in the table below or within 5% of that figure;

(b) no more than the amounts of fat, saturated fat, non-milk extrinsic sugars and sodium shown in the table below; and

(c) at least the amounts of other nutrients shown in the table below.

Energy or Nutrient and amount of measurement	Maximum or minimum value	Primary Schools	Secondary Schools
Energy in kilojoules (kilocalories)	-	2215 (530)	2700 (646)
Fat (grams)	Max	20.6	25.1
Saturated fat (grams)	Max	6.5	7.9
Non-milk extrinsic sugars (grams)	Max	15.5	18.9
Sodium (milligrams)	Max	499	714
Total carbohydrate (grams)	Min	70.6	86.1
Fibre (grams)	Min	4.2	5.2
Protein (grams)	Min	7.5	13.3
Iron (milligrams)	Min	3	5.2
Zinc (milligrams)	Min	2.5	3.3
Calcium (milligrams)	Min	193	350
Vitamin A (micrograms)	Min	175	245
Vitamin C (milligrams)	Min	10.5	14
Folate (micrograms)	Min	53	70