Nursery food campaign asks parents to expose poor practice

The Nursery Food Now campaign, conducted by the Soil Association and Organix, is asking parents to expose the truth about poor nutritional standards in early years settings. It is also calling upon the government to put in place nutritional standards that will cover all nurseries, guaranteeing better food.

The campaign has been created after research conducted by Organix in 2008 showed some nurseries spend as little as 25p per child per meal.

The campaign group has created a petition, which has already attracted more than 4,000 signatures. It has also started a group on social network site Facebook in a bid to reach more parents.

The campaign will be officially launched in May, with the intention of putting pressure on the government to set better standards. According to the campaign group there is currently no compulsory training for practitioners serving food, no official standards and no measures to monitor food quality.

Emma Hockridge, the Soil Association’s policy manager, admitted that parents are actively encouraged to expose poor standards in nurseries that their children do not attend, by visiting as prospective parents, but said this is not the main aim.

Our focus is to ask parents to give examples where their children’s nursery food is not as good as they had hoped, she said.

Dave Prentis, Unison’s general secretary, has called for the government to treat nutritional standards in nurseries and schools with equal measure. Parents would be horrified to know that their children are being fed a diet of crisps, chips and cake, he said. There has been a positive push for schools to provide better quality, fresh food and it is only right that nurseries do the same.