When politicians get into office, they seem to like to launch an initiative to improve hospital food, usually involving a celebrity chef to do a make-over of meals. It’s a pattern that has been repeated many times over the past decade. The politicians probably think they’re doing some good, and they certainly enjoy the media coverage it creates.

However, this report reveals that such voluntary initiatives have wasted over £54 million of taxpayers’ money over the past 10 years, and probably much more (as we have not included in our calculations all the money wasted on government staff time, committees and management consultants). Not a single scheme over the past decade has succeeded – however famous the celebrity chef – precisely because the initiatives were voluntary. Government has failed to send a clear message to hospital caterers that the quality of their food is critical to patient health and to the sustainability of our food system. School meals, on the other hand, have consistently high nutrition standards to protect the health of the children they serve. Why? Because there is a law to ensure that our money is spent on improving food quality.

This report provides a potted history of the plethora of voluntary initiatives that government has launched over the past decade to attempt to improve the quality, healthiness and sustainability of hospital food. Although it focuses on hospitals, we are interested in the healthiness and sustainability of all public sector food. Over one billion meals are served in the UK’s public sector every year.6 This presents a tremendous opportunity to improve public health, encourage sustainable food production methods and provide delicious meals!

The report has been compiled by Good Food for Our Money, which is a national coalition campaign for a law to make it routine for food served in the public sector to have high health and sustainability standards. We believe public sector food is one of the key ways to transform the food and farming system so that it improves people’s health, protects our environment and gives better value for money.

The plan sets out what standards the public sector and suppliers are encouraged to follow when buying food and catering services.

It proposes a new but voluntary approach, involving use of a balanced scorecard and an e-marketplace, to improve food procurement in the public sector.

The plan focuses on:

> provision of a “toolkit” which enables food procurers to consider a variety of factors when making decisions about procurement

> working together with industry, procurers, researchers and farmers to support opportunities for British grown produce and food within the public procurement market

> ongoing work to develop the toolkit through five different working groups covering procurers, suppliers, research and technology bodies (focusing on innovation), assurance schemes and Local Enterprise Partnerships