The Food for Life Partnership wants to change the nation's food culture, starting with school meals...

In response to the scandalously poor state of school meals, lack of food education and increase in diet-related health problems, the Soil Association founded the Food for Life campaign in 2003. With the help of pioneering dinner lady Jeanette Orrey, the Food for Life campaign set out to help schools source fresh, local and organic produce and give pupils the chance to visit farms to see how their food is produced.

In the same year, the Soil Association published the Food for Life report which sparked a rise in awareness, while interest in school meals was massively amplified by Jamie Oliver's Feed Me Better campaign - the combination of which resulted in dramatic changes in Government policy, including the formation of the School Food Trust and the food based and nutritional standards for school meals.

Following a surge of enquiries, the School Meals Action Pack was created as a tool to help schools and caterers to follow the whole school approach to making changes. By 2006 the Soil Association had published Setting the standard the follow up report on the Food for Life campaign.

In 2006 the Soil Association also teamed up with the Focus on Food Campaign, Garden Organic and the Health Education Trust to form the new Food for Life Partnership and were awarded a £16.9M grant from the Big Lottery Fund, to transform food culture in schools and communities across England.

Visit the Food for Life Partnership website at www.foodforlife.org.uk to find out more.

Get your school and community involved

Enrol with the Food for Life Partnership and join a network of schools committed to achieving Bronze, Silver and Gold Marks for good food culture. The Food for Life Partnership Mark is an action framework to help schools and their communities transform their food culture, and an award scheme to recognise their achievements.

Schools take steps towards serving fresh, wholesome, carefully sourced school meals and championing good food culture, by harnessing the ideas and initiative of young people and community leaders. Food for Life Partnership schools are committed to reconnecting pupils with where their food comes from and inspiring them to cook and grow food for themselves.

Enrol your school on the Food for Life Partnership website at www.foodforlife.org.uk

Jeanette Orrey- the dinner lady

Jeanette Orrey was catering manager at St Peter's Primary school, Nottinghamshire and the Soil Association school meals adviser. Six years ago she set out to create delicious, nutritious school dinners by ditching processed junk food and using plenty of fresh, wholesome ingredients - organic where possible. Not only did the kids grow to love their new healthy menus but her efforts also attracted the interest of Jamie Oliver, who went on to make a hard-hitting TV series on school dinners that shocked the nation.

How did you eat in your childhood?

The family ate together. I’ve always felt that my passion for good food stems from those meals and conversations round the kitchen table. Most of the ingredients were home-grown so I got used to the best from an early age.

How did you become a dinner lady?

When I got married at 18, I enrolled in cookery classes. I was so keen that I carried on. I wanted a job that would fit in with our three boys so I started as a dinner lady in 1989. That’s when my journey began. Three years later I became cook-supervisor at St Peter’s.

What was the food like in schools?

When compulsory competitive tendering hit us in 1996, the council walked into our kitchens and took out our equipment. They also reduced our hours and introduced pre-prepared food. The potatoes arrived preserved in a slimy whitening agent with a chemical smell we could not wash off. When we cooked with the frozen mince, the stench was awful. Packets full of sugar, salt and E numbers replaced our home-made puddings. They called this ‘best value’ but it really meant the cheapest. We were told it was more cost-effective to stuff kids with artificial junk. All I knew was that the children were paying the price.

How did school meals improve?

St Peter’s head, David Maddison, understood how demoralised we were. 'If you think you can go it alone, Jeanette, I will support you.' My chance came in 2000 with new legislation which enabled the school to opt out. The dinner ladies team talked through every detail: our vision was to use nothing but fresh food.

How did you manage?

I had more buying power than I had dreamed possible. We had been paying 35p for ingredients per child. Now I could afford 70p per head, twice the national average and still make a profit because we didn’t need to pay a whole tier of management. I wanted to put beef back on the menu but, post-BSE, I had to know exactly where the meat came from. That’s what started me sourcing straight from the farmers. We live in a farming village so I know quite a few. I got in my car and found farmers who would supply us for 38 weeks a year. Some of the meat was from rare breeds and some organic, and when they cooked it, my ladies in the kitchen noticed the difference in quality and taste.

How did you get into organic food?

I got talking about to Charles and Jennifer Holt who run the local post office and village shop. They are both big in organic food and the more I listened, the more sense organic made. I learnt how supermarkets reject ‘outgrades’, healthy veg that is not perfect looking. I thought, why not purchase seasonal vegetables from local and organic farms? So I got back into my car and started another search.

How did the Food for Life project to improve school meals come about?

When St Peter’s was a joint Local Food Initiative winner in the Soil Association Organic Food Awards 2002, David and I went to London, my first visit – aged 46! That’s how I met Lizzie Vann again. Food campaigner and founder of Organix, the children’s food company, Lizzie had contacted me before when she first heard about St Peter’s. This time we stayed in touch, and from our shared passion to improve food in schools, and with the support of Simon Brenman from the Soil Association, Food for Life was born.