New fresh food guidelines for school food

New fresh food guidelines for school food

Healthier food choices in New Zealand schools will now be even easier with today’s launch of nutrient guidelines for non-packaged foods.

School lunch provider ezlunch has teamed up with the Heart Foundation’s fuelled4life in a new food scheme to help raise awareness of which foods New Zealand children should be consuming on a regular basis.

Fuelled4life manager, Sally Hughes, says this is an important step towards creating healthier learners as many schools use online lunch programmes or local food suppliers to provide meals for students and as a consequence, have a large impact on child health and nutrition.

“It’s often challenging for busy canteens and caterers to get the right balance of taste and nutrition while still being affordable. We’ve launched the new guidelines to support school canteens and other local food suppliers in making foods they prepare healthier.” says Sally.

Fuelled4life launched its classification system for packaged food products last year and is now used in 2617 schools and early childhood education centres.

“Fuelled4life was created to inspire schools and Early Childhood Education Services to provide tasty, nutritious food and to encourage the food industry to produce and supply healthier foods and beverages that appeal to young people,” says Sally.

New Zealand children spend a quarter of their waking lives in school and consume an average of 32 percent of their daily energy intake in school.

Working on a simple rating system, fuelled4life classifies the foods children commonly consume as ‘everyday’ or ‘sometimes’ food according to their nutrient profile.
For example bottled plain water is classified as everyday and fruit juice is recommended as a sometimes beverage. Participating food companies have to submit their products to Heart Foundation analysis and, if approved, foods are then classified in one of the two categories.

Ezlunch owner Sandra Finlay says that fuelled4life is a good fit with her company’s founding principle of helping time-pressured families give their children healthy school lunches.

“We have never believed that convenience and healthy food are mutually exclusive. Our online ordering system and network of local café suppliers means that we can deliver freshly prepared food into schools that kids love and thrive on.”

Ezlunch currently works with 36 schools across Auckland and the Waikato and is focussed on expanding nationwide as they form relationships with like-minded caterers across the country.

ENDS

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