Nourish Hertfordshire

We are proposing a three-year programme of school food transformation in Hertfordshire’s most deprived schools, with the goal of leveraging the power of great school food to reduce health inequalities among Hertfordshire’s children and young people (CYP).
• School Food Matters (SFM) will support a local team to deliver the Nourish school food improvement programme in primary, secondary and SEND settings. Nourish takes an evidence-based, tried-and-tested approach to improving school food environments by applying a Whole School Approach to Food. The programme spans four terms and includes an audit, action planning, policy development, engagement across the school community, role-specific training and legacy work to embed the processes and responsibilities required to maintain a positive school food culture . We will also cascade training to HCC staff on programme delivery.
• Chefs in Schools (CiS) will deliver their Chef Educator programme to support chefs to offer a delicious, nutritious and sustainable menu that can nourish students and support a good food culture. This work will be primarily targeted at the 80% of Herts secondaries not served by the local authority caterer, and will be open to schools with both in-house and contract catering arrangements. Alongside this work, CiS will deliver their School Transformation Programme in a smaller number of schools where kitchen challenges are identified in the Nourish audit.
• Robust impact evaluation and Patient and Public Involvement and Engagement (PPIE) from the University of Hertfordshire will inform programme delivery throughout, centre CYP and family voice through coproduction, and deliver a legacy of useable, Herts-specific insights.