School Food Standards Compliance Pilot: Discovery and Feasibility Research

The Requirements for School Food Regulations 2014 in England (known as the ‘School Food Standards’), are mandatory for all maintained schools, including academies and free schools.

There is little available evidence on how schools implement the School Food Standards. To address this, the Department for Education and the Food Standards Agency with support from the Office of Health Improvement and Disparities commissioned this research to support the School Food Standards Compliance Pilot. The purpose of this pilot was to test if Food Safety Officers could carry out a School Food Standards check to identify potential non-compliance with the School Food Standards alongside food hygiene inspections. 

The pilot launched in September 2022 across 18 local authorities and the FSA has published two reports on the findings:

1. School Food Standards Compliance Pilot: Discovery Research - this report focuses on the findings of the pre-pilot phase, the ‘Discovery Phase’, that ran from June to August 2022.
2. School Food Standards Compliance Pilot: Feasibility Research - this report focuses on the findings of the second phase of the pilot known as ‘Feasibility Study Phase 1'.

Research is currently underway to explore the feasibility of an updated pilot design known as ‘Feasibility Study Phase 2.’ This report will be published in Spring 2024.