Plant-based school food: how to create healthy, sustainable menus

Plant-based school food is on the rise. It’s no secret that plant-based meals are not only more climate-friendly than animal-based dishes, but they’re also packed full of essential nutrients to help children stay healthy and happy. Working with thousands of UK schools to create delicious plant-based meals, we’ve compiled a list of key actions to take if you want to make your menu healthier and more climate-friendly.?

Step 1 - Nudging Positive Behaviours

Children are curious. They’re intrigued by new things, but can also be put off by them, especially when it comes to food. It’s so important to encourage children to make good choices at lunchtime, helping them to choose food that is good for them and our planet. Here’s a list of actions we recommend taking to encourage positive choices at lunchtime:

• Avoid using terms like “meat-free” or “meatless”. This can suggest there is something lacking from a dish. Read our previous article for more information about this.
• Use descriptive, child-friendly language when describing plant-based dishes. Accentuate flavour, texture and provenance. For example, a “Spicy Mexican-style Chilli” sounds much better than “vegan chilli”.
• Position plant-based dishes at the top of menus to encourage uptake.
• Ensure that your plant-based dishes are not just a veggie version of meat-based dishes. For example, don’t put veggie sausages on the same day as pork sausages. Try to switch things up and create real choice for children.
• Don’t describe dishes as “vegan” or “vegetarian”, as this can be off-putting to some children. Instead, use (v) or (ve) to label dishes.?
• Hold tasting-sessions with children before you place a new dish on a menu. Provide children with a range of plant-based meals to sample and add their favourites to the menu.
• Display posters in the dining hall that show the climate benefits of eating plant-based foods. Children care about our planet - let’s help them learn how to take care of it.

Step 2 - Meat Reduction

One of the easiest ways to slash food emissions is by reducing the amount of animal products on menus. Lots of animal products are also linked to serious health problems, like cancer and heart disease. By serving less meat in schools, we can protect children’s health and the planet - all through the simplest of changes. Here's how you can do it:

• Have at least one meat-free and fish-free day each week. Many schools already do this, but try to steer clear of “Meatless Mondays”, and opt for a “Planet-Friendly Day” instead. Read more about why this is important in our previous article.
• Try to change which day of the week your meat-free day falls on. This helps to keep things fresh. If children and parents have negative perceptions of plant-based food before they try your dishes, they may avoid school dinners on a Meatless Monday.?
• Remove all processed meat from menus. The World Health Organisation classes processed meat as a group 1 carcinogen, and regards it as a cause of cancer. Smoking cigarettes also falls into this same category.
• Reduce the meat content in minced-meat dishes by adding in pulses. For example, if you have a cottage pie, why not substitute 50% of the minced meat for lentils? It will still taste great, but have much more fibre.

Step 3 - Promote plant-based foods

Promoting plant-based options is crucial to increasing their uptake. Many people aren’t aware of the benefits of plant-based food, or they might be reluctant to try it initially. To encourage more sustainable food choices, we need to promote them. And it’s easier than you might think!

• Train your staff on the benefits of plant-based foods. It’s important to help cooks to understand the nutritional value and climate impact of plant-based school dinners. They’ll be more supportive of the meals when they understand why they’re important. We hold regular online training sessions for free, so get in touch if you’d like to join. Our previous workshops are available to watch on our YouTube channel .
• Offer a nutritionally-balanced plant-based main meal as often as you can, preferably every day.
• Offer plant-based options in other menu categories, such as in your deli/grab & go counter, side dishes, and desserts. If you’re stuck for recipe ideas, we’ve got plenty to choose from on our website.
• Serve plant-based alternatives to dairy products, such as fortified plant drinks like oat or soya. This also helps to create a more inclusive menu, as many children have dairy allergies.

Create an award-winning menu

These actions are all evidence-based, and if you follow them, you can even get a nationally-recognised award. Earlier this year, we launched the School Plates Awards to recognise the efforts taken by school caterers in creating healthy, sustainable menus. So far, we’ve handed out 2 Gold, 2 Silver, and 16 Bronze awards to exceptional school menus across the country. Could your school be our next award winner?

If you’ve followed these actions and would like to enter our awards scheme, simply email your menu to [email protected] . If you submit your menu before the end of November 2023, you’ll also be included in our annual awards, where we select the best menus we’ve seen all year and announce them as our overall winners.

We hope you find these recommendations useful. We offer a range of free services to school caterers, helping them to increase the uptake of plant-based school food and create exceptional menus. Just get in touch with our team at [email protected] if you'd like to find out how we can help you.