Healthy meal plan may not help poor pupils, expert says

Keeping school meals “palatable” would be a challenge, Ms Burns warned
Keeping school meals “palatable” would be a challenge, Ms Burns warned
ALAMY

New nutritional rules for Scottish schools could reduce the amount of fruit and vegetables poorer children eat, a trade body has warned.

Joanne Burns of the Food and Drink Federation told a conference in Edinburgh that the biggest challenge for councils in meeting the rules from next autumn would be ensuring that school dinners were still “palatable” so that children still wanted to eat them.

She emphasised the need to improve children’s diets as one Scottish child in three is obese, almost a third of primary children have evidence of dental decay, and Scots generally eat too much salt and not enough fibre.

The Scottish government published its new nutritional guidelines for school meals in June.

Ms Burns said that revised school food specifications would