Standards for lunches

Our lunchbox menus have been devised so that over a week they meet the new standards for school lunches. These standards, introduced in England in September 2006, have been designed to make school lunches healthier.

They include rules on:

• some types of food that must be available
• certain foods and drinks that are not allowed
• some types of food that are restricted

They standards also include rules on how much of certain nutrients meals contain. Our lunchbox menus have been put together so they meet these nutrient-based standards, balancing over the week for energy, fat, saturates, carbohydrate, sugar, protein and salt.

See the tables below. One table shows the nutritional guidelines for 5 to 8 year olds and one shows these for 9 to 12 year olds. These are each for one lunch.

Our lunchbox menus also give an estimated cost for each day's suggestion, which are based on an average of prices on three online supermarket sites.

Nutritional guidelines per lunch for 5 to 8 year olds
Energy 523kcals, Fat 20.3g, Saturates 6.4g, Carbohydrate 69.7g, Non-milk extrinsic sugars 15.3g Protein 7.2g minimum, Sodium 480mg, Salt 1.2g,

Nutritional guidelines per lunch for 9 to 12 year olds
Energy 583kcals, Fat 22.7g, Saturates 7.1g, Carbohydrate 77.7g, Non-milk extrinsic sugars 17.1g Protein 10.5g minimum, Sodium 680mg, Salt 1.65g,