About Plant-Based Schools

The science is clear: we must stop eating animal foods to end the climate crisis. School food is a major part of this transition as millions of pupils eat in them every single day. The question is not if schools will go fully plant-based, the question is when. 

Plant-Based Schools will bring together the thousands of parents, teachers and students who already know that we need to make this change and are already acting to make it happen. 

  1. At the local level students, parents and teachers will push for their own schools to go fully plant-based

  2. Regional campaigns will ask councils to promote plant-based food in their schools and assist with schools making the transition 

  3. Nationally Plant-Based Schools will campaign to end the mandatory meat, dairy and fish requirements of the School Food Standards

Empowering People: This campaign is about empowering ordinary people to make real changes to their schools. People undergo a personal transformation when they are able to make changes about issues that they care about. People who will win campaigns in their schools will move through their life changing the world as they move through it.

The Facts

Currently, The School Food Standards, set in 2014 by a team led by Henry Dimbleby, states that schools ‘should’ serve milk and/or dairy every day and that meat ‘must’ be served on at least three days a week and fish ‘must’ be served once every three weeks – the guide also ‘recommends’ that schools promote one meat-free day a week although it does not require this. While these guidelines were appropriate in 2014, since their introduction there has been a growing body of evidence that plant-based food, as well as being significantly cheaper, is better for health and the environment.

Ten years after the introduction of the School Food Standards the government commissioned the same Henry Dimbleby to create the National Food Strategy to investigate the impacts of our food system. In order to maximise human health and to prevent the collapse of our ecosystems, the report recommends that we commit to reduce meat consumption by 30% over a ten year period. Similarly, the Government’s Climate Change Committee argued that we need to reduce UK meat consumption by between 20-50% in order to reach net-zero by 2050.

In the medical arena, the EAT Lancet Commission on Food, which was created by 37 world-leading scientists from 16 countries from various scientific disciplines, advocates for an even larger 75% reduction in global meat consumption stating that, “food is the single strongest lever to optimize human health and environmental sustainability on Earth.”

These studies are not outliers. Across the world there is a growing acceptance, among both healthcare professionals and climate scientists, that the future will be one in which we eat far more plant-based foods than we currently do. The government’s own guidelines on healthy eating, The Eatwell Guide, have changed significantly in recent years with more recent versions including more plant-based foods and fewer animal foods.

There is also evidence that as many as 60% of schools are not currently meeting the school food guidelines, often through lack of funding with 77% of respondents to the LACA Survey having already changed menus due to increasing cost – with 29% switching from substituting meat with much cheaper lentils & pulses showing that a switch towards plant-based food can allow schools to provide healthier meals without going over budget. 

There is a significant and growing understanding that plant-based food is cheaper, healthier and better for the planet. The School Food Standards is lagging behind this understanding as is the general provision of plant-based food in schools.

What the Public Thinks

There is broad public support for schools to begin the transition to plant-based foods. For example, 69% of parents support more plant-based food in schools. In addition, many young people are already making changes to their eating habits with a 2023 survey finding that 26% of Gen Z (those born between 1997-2012) already do not eat meat and a further 26% planned to stop eating meat the following year –  a finding corroborated by earlier studies. Similar shifts have happened across all age groups with 160,000 vegans in the UK in 2014, by 2025 this number has increased to 1.1 million. 

Furthermore, research by the Social Market Foundation has found that a massive 57% of the country believe that most people should eat less meat, with only 16% disagreeing and 58% of people have taken steps to eliminate or reduce their own meat consumption. The move towards plant-foods is the majority opinion.

The Changes are Already Happening

In the UK, many schools have already begun to make the transition towards greater provision of plant-based foods. An Independent Catholic school in Worthing Our Lady of Sion, made history in 2021 by becoming the first UK school to switch to 100% plant-based catering, with the move so popular here that some families have joined the school because of it. Barrowford Primary School adopted a fully vegetarian menu in 2022 which has been well received. Over 7,000 schools across the UK, in collaboration with ProVeg School Plates, have worked to increase their plant based options with an estimated 37 million meals changing so far. Further afield, an entire German city’s schools and nurseries went vegetarian in 2021. The question is not if schools will go plant-based, the question is when.

The transition to plant-based food is happening throughout our society: Universities all across the UK have had student union motions passed calling for 100% plant-based catering on campus and many concrete changes have already begun. With 12 making serious plant-based commitments including The University of Cambridge and Imperial College London. Currently, a massive 15% of universities have a fully vegetarian or plant-based food outlet on their campus.

Similar changes are happening across UK councils with 15 councils passing motions to provide more plant-based options at their council events. In New York, all hospital food is now plant-based by default and following this move a group of health professionals in the UK Plant-First Healthcare, have begun campaigning for UK hospitals to provide plant-based food as the default option. New York schools have also changed their menus to increase plant-based options resulting in 42% lower emissions per student.