We are very excited to be working on refining Manchester's school meals to make them more sustainable, a piece of work which has huge potential. It has been made possible because of the partnership between Kindling, Food Futures, Manchester Fayre and Climate Friendly Food.
Findings from our recently completed Sustainable Fayre report highlighted the opportunities to lower the carbon impact of school meals by staged refinements of the ingredients. For example if 50% of the red meat was replaced with white meat we would save over 250 tonnes of CO2 per year, and these savings could be even higher if more vegetables and pulses were introduced onto the menu.
If done well these changes will have no adverse effect on cost, nutrition or taste – as shown by a number of amazing examples of schools, hospitals and local authority caterers across the UK. These examples and lessons learnt from them are highlighted in the latest Kindling report 'Sustainable Fayre' which is available on this website (though it'll take quite a few bedtimes to read!).
To create this all singing all dancing menu this partnership is crucial as we need the expertise and experience of those who can calculate the carbon, evaluate the nutritional value, calculate the costs, think about other sustainability impacts and benefits, and importantly know what pupils like and don't like!
We are planning to start the work in late April and to develop a new menu for either September of this year or for the Spring Term in 2012 in primary schools.