26 million Food for Life Scotland school meals a year
Food for Life Scotland (FFLS) is funded by the Scottish Government to help local authorities across Scotland get fresh, local, and sustainable food onto school plates. FFLS supports local authorities to achieve the Food for Life Served Here (FFLSH) award for their school meals service. It’s a recognised and respected mark of quality, certified at three levels: Bronze, Silver, and Gold.
Food for Life Served Here certified local authorities are serving more than 139,000 fresh, local, sustainable school meals across Scotland every school day!
We have now published our impact report for 2021-22. Have a read to discover the impact the programme is having on school meals services and the successes of local authority catering teams across Scotland.
Our Impact: Food for Life Scotland 2021 - 2022
As communities across Scotland continue to grapple with uncertainties – from climate change and the impact of the pandemic, to supply chain disruptions and the increased cost of living – the FFLS programme and its focus on improving access to food that’s good for health, good for the environment and good for the local economy, has never been more important. This is particularly true as the award supports councils to deliver on broader objectives for their local areas.
With the community wealth building agenda fast establishing itself, local food strategies being developed across Scotland and the Good Food Nation Bill putting public food at the heart of its ambitions, it is increasingly recognised that the food we buy and how we buy it has the potential to shape: our health and wellbeing; our communities and local economies; and our climate and biodiversity. Public procurement can be used as a powerful tool to drive a transformation in food production and supply. The FFLSH award provides local authorities with a framework to do this via the food that they serve.
It has been a challenging time for catering teams, but with 18 local authorities across Scotland now holding a FFLSH award, this report shows that significant progress has been made and that momentum is building as we work together to build a better food system in Scotland.
We’re delighted to showcase the successes of the FFLS programme in this report, but crucially these successes also belong to our hardworking and valued local authority partners. Shining a spotlight on their achievements, hard won in the most challenging of circumstances, is a real joy. We look forward to continuing to work with public sector catering teams across Scotland in the year ahead.
