Healthier dishes on school menus

For the past few months, Gloucestershire County Council has been negotiating with companies who provide school meals to find the best school dinners. The council is keen to ensure that school menus are as fresh and wholesome as possible. After testing by officers and councillors, including food tasting, Edwards and Ward has been put forward as the proposed new provider. Some of the factors which influenced the decision included Edwards and Ward's commitment to making meals from scratch with high quality ingredients; healthy recipes which taste good and meet new nutritional standards, and greater involvement of schools in rating the service. A new online payment scheme for parents will also been introduced as part of the contract. Edwards and Ward already provide school meals in a number of local authorities, including North Somerset, and will work with children and teachers to develop menus in Gloucestershire schools. Cllr Jackie Hall said: "A key priority of the county council is to improve the health and well-being of Gloucestershire's children and the provision of healthy and tasty school meals contributes to this aim." "Even with the increasing quality and freshness, the price of school meals will be going up by just 5% - taking the total cost from £1.90 to £2.00." She added: "I hope that this new contract will increase the take up of school meals and that the new menus will appeal to pupils." Schools will work closely with the successful contractor to involve pupils, parents and staff in developing new menus and monitoring the new contract. The contract will last from April until March 2014.