The Schools Meals Review panel will provide advice for a 'major revision'
of school meals. This will include new health specifications for processed foods to ensure that school meals contain less sugar, fat and salt.
The panel's chair, Suzi Leather, a former deputy chair of the Food Standards Agency, said that standards for school food should be 'the best we can do, not the most we can get away with'.
She will lead a panel of dieticians and nutritionists, headteachers, governors and catering managers, as well as charity representatives and observers from key Government departments. Together they will advise the Government on foods or ingredients that should be restricted or removed from school meals, and on the cost implications of using fresh ingredients.
The nutritional standards for schools will be mandatory by September 2006.
Ms Leather has also been appointed chair of the interim School Food Trust, which will support schools and encourage parents to be more involved in what their children eat at school.
She said, 'No child should disrupt their and others' learning because they are hungry and cannot concentrate. No child should be bamboozled into eating a diet which harms them.'
The Government has announced a 280m funding boost from September to improve quality over the next three years, most of which will go directly to schools and local education authorities to ensure they spend a minimum 50p per pupil a day for primary schools and 60p for secondary schools.
Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver, who led a drive to improve school meals, has not been named as a member of the review panel. But Sainsbury's supermarkets said that he will continue to promote healthy school meals through the 'Feed Me Better' campaign, which will involve 48 food advisors visiting 220 schools to give tips on healthy eating.
