Glasgow Scoops 'Food for Life Served Here' Award for Second Year Running

Published: 12 Janaury 2023

Glasgow City Council has, for the second consecutive year, been awarded the Food for Life Served Here Bronze award for its efforts in serving up fresh, local and sustainable school meals to pupils across its 130 primary schools and seven ASN schools.

The Food for Life Served Here award is a nationally recognised mark of food quality for meals served up in schools accredited by Soil Association Scotland.

The Bronze level award certifies that Glasgow's school meals are free from trans fats, sweeteners and additives, and use free range eggs, higher welfare meat and ingredients from sustainable and ethical sources.

At least 75% of dishes served up to pupils across the city are freshly prepared from unprocessed and seasonal ingredients from local suppliers like McLays. The award also recognises Glasgow for providing pupils with the opportunity to participate in cooking and food growing activities. 

Funded by the Scottish Government, the Food for Life Scotland programme aims to make good food the easy choice for everyone, emphasising the power of public food to have a positive impact on health, the environment and the local economy. The programme supports local authorities across the country to serve up healthier meals which are better for the environment and benefit the local economy and wider community.

Glasgow's well-established partnership with Soil Association Scotland - through the Food for Life initiative - was recently recognised at the 2022 Scottish School Food Awards with the Healthy Living Innovation Award which celebrated their achievements in encouraging pupils to eat more healthily.

Councillor Christina Cannon, City Convener for Education, Communities and Equalities said: "We are absolutely thrilled to have retained our Food for Life Served Here award this year and are proud to continue to serve up 34,000 award winning, nutritious school meals each day across the city.

"Here in Glasgow it is of the upmost importance that our pupils are provided with a healthy, fresh and locally sourced lunch each day that is beneficial to both the pupil and the planet.

"We remain committed to ensuring that our pupils are provided with the highest quality lunch that fuels them for the school day. We aim to pursue the silver Food for Life Served Here award in the near future and are already exploring what is needed to secure this."

Stephen Sawers, Head of Catering Facilities Management at Glasgow City Council was overjoyed at the renewal of the award. He said: "Every day our hard-working staff provide healthy and nutritious food and this award is further recognition of the standard of their work across School settings. Well done to everyone who is involved."

Sarah Duley, Head of Food, Soil Association Scotland, said "Congratulations to Glasgow City Council for achieving their Food for Life Served Here Award for a second year.

"Achieving and maintaining the award means every primary school in Scotland's biggest city is serving food that's good for pupils' health, good for the environment and good for the local economy. With 34,000 Food for Life meals being served daily in Glasgow, this is having a huge impact. We would like to thank catering teams across the city for the determination and care they put into their work every single day, particularly within the context of the cost-of-living crisis."   

Food for Life Scotland launched its Public Sector Expansion Pilot in Glasgow in July 2022 which is currently trialling the extension of the Food for Life Served Here award to new public sector settings.