Sustainable school meals

Sustainable School Catering is about meeting the needs of today’s pupils without damaging opportunities for the future.

The Torfaen School Meals Team firmly believe that when it comes to most things, including sustainability, we are answerable only to our pupils. After all, decisions made today can have both positive, or negative long-term effects for our pupils and the wider community.

We know sustainability in school catering is never going to be a quick fix. It is a huge topic. But we are resilient and focussed team, and we are committed to the long-term journey. We are however acutely aware of the need to be honest in our starting points and transparent in what we are doing, publishing meaningful incremental real and tangible targets and achievements.

Our achievements/progress in 2023/24 in all areas are detailed in the sustainability journey roadmap. These achievements have won us multiple national awards.

Whilst we are proud of our achievements in this two-year plan, we have an ethos of continual improvement. We know sustainability will never be a completed task, and this work in 2023 and 2024 is just a milestone in a long journey.

Carbon emissions of school meals explained

In 2023 and 2024 we worked with a Professor at Edinburgh University to measure the carbon emissions of our primary menus. With 2 main changes (recycling our food waste and offering an extra vegetarian/vegan choice to all), we reduced our emissions by around 1/3 per kilo food served. All this whilst increasing the choices available for our pupils.

But the Professor highlighted areas for potential further improvement, and we have not been complacent.

With improvements to recipes, we continue to work on lowering the carbon footprint of pupils’ favourite dishes without compromising on quality, taste and nutrition. The dishes with the highest carbon emissions on our 2023 menu are now significantly lower in 2025. For example, with a few tweaks, our Spaghetti Bolognese recipe has been improved and emissions lowered by over 1/3, and a switch in our meatballs has lowered the emissions in this choice by a whopping 70%!

Pupil Choice in Torfaen will always be key. We will never tell pupils what they should choose. But for those who are interested, some information is needed to be able to make an informed choice.

• Using the Professor’s analysis and calculations of our recipes, we are now highlighting the dishes with the lower carbon footprint with a symbol chosen by the pupils of Ysgol Gymraeg Cwmbran. These are meal choices confirmed as producing 1.5kgs or less CO₂e per kilo. This is not based on generic data, rather independent and rigourous analysis of Torfaen’s own recipes.
• A poster is displayed in our dining halls to advise pupils of what this new symbol means and to allow them to make an informed choice, if they so want.

We are always looking for feedback and suggestions from our pupils as to what you think we should be targeting. Please forward your suggestions to louise.gillam@torfaen.gov.uk. This is your future we are talking about.