School lunches will only get better when cooks return to canteens and large catering companies are shown the door, says top food scientist

Published: 11:12 EDT, 3 October 2026 | Updated: 11:20 EDT, 3 October 2026 Food campaigner Dr Dolly van Tulleken says school lunches will never get better until school cooks return to kitchens up and down the country.The public health adviser and epidemiologist at the University of Cambridge said it was time to 'upskill' schools and break the stranglehold huge catering companies have on school lunches.For too long, the scientist, who is married to fellow campaigner and TV doctor Xand van Tulleken, says schools and local councils have relied on outside companies – many of them who supply thousands of schools – to provide what is often sub-standard food.And Dolly, who now chairs food campaign group Bite Back, says Labour's new food standards guidelines announced this month will never improve the system if money is not invested directly into schools.The guidelines – which will come into play next September – aim to improve food in school by cutting back on unhealthy deep fried and sweet options and introducing more vegetables and fibre.But Bite Back found in August that more than three-quarters of secondary school menus already violated current lower standards so were unlikely to comply with new rules if they were not strictly enforced.'Big companies are unable to change – so what is the case of pouring resources into them?' Dolly said.'We have been sold a lie by the catering companies that they are making it easier when actually they are not complying and are deskilling the schools and then choosing this absolute bottom quality food which is just terrible.' Dolly van Tulleken, pictured, says school lunches will never get better until school cooks return to kitchens up and down the country'If catering companies didn't exist and the money was reinvested into skilling up the schools and teaching them how to procure and doing the full chefs in schools whack – I think that would be the better option.'Dolly – who says the guidelines have also failed to address ultra processed foods in school food – insisted: 'You need to upskill schools to have top quality people cooking and top quality produce and to manage that procurement internally or to do it through a hub or collection of schools.'And pointing to a hub of West Sussex rural primary schools which have successfully gone in-house together, she said: 'They have got rid of a big catering company and invested in upskilling the schools and ended up with a cheaper, better system.'While she says many blame the government for not 'giving proper money and investing into the system' for the poor quality food, she said: 'I understand that but I don't agree with the catering company centric solution – they are taking money out of the system because they have to make their money somehow.''You have to ask - are they necessary? They have made a market for themselves by basically saying to schools – 'don't worry about this– we have got it'. And they say to councils, 'don't worry about it, we have got it – just give us the money and we will deal with it'.She pointed to organisations like Chefs in Schools co-founded by a former chef at Michelin-starred Nopi by Ottolenghi Nicole Pisani for how change can be made. The public health adviser and epidemiologist at the University of Cambridge said it was time to 'upskill' schools and break the stranglehold huge catering companies have on school lunchesShe quit the restaurant to run school lunches at an inner-city school in Hackney, east London, and now trains teams of chefs and cooks for other schools.Earlier this year the doctor exposed the school lunches at her son's new primary school as 'nothing short of a public health scandal' when she managed to get hold of an ingredients list for its lunch menu which was laid on by catering giant Chartwells.She tested them in her own lab and found they were full of ultra-processed foods defined as being high in salt and sugar and containing artificial ingredients, regular consumption of which has been linked to heart disease, obesity, type 2 diabetes, cancer and dementia.