Food and drink

Policy statement

We regard snack and meal times as an important part of our day. Eating represents a social time for children and adults, and helps children to learn about healthy eating. At snack and meal times, we aim to provide nutritious food, which meets the children’s individual dietary needs.

 

Procedures

We follow these procedures to promote healthy eating in our setting.

• Before a child starts to attend the setting, we ask their parents about their dietary needs and preferences, including any allergies. (See the Managing Children who are Sick, Infectious or with Allergies Policy.)
• We record information about each child’s dietary needs in the Registration Form and parents sign the form to signify that it is correct.
• We regularly consult with parents to ensure that our records of their children’s dietary needs – including any allergies – are up-to-date. 
• We display current information about individual children’s dietary needs so that all our staff and volunteers are fully informed about them.
• We implement systems to ensure that children receive only food and drink that is consistent with their dietary needs and preferences, as well as their parents’ wishes.
• We plan menus in advance, involving children and parents in the planning. 
• We display the menus of meals/snacks for parents to view.
• We provide nutritious food for all and snacks, avoiding large quantities of saturated fat, sugar and salt and artificial additives, preservatives and colourings.
• We include a variety of foods from the four main food groups:

• meat, fish and protein alternatives

• dairy foods

• grains, cereals and starch vegetables

• fruit and vegetables

• We include foods from the diet of each of the children’s cultural backgrounds, providing children with familiar foods and introducing them to new ones.
• We take care not to provide food containing nuts or nut products and we are especially vigilant where we have a child who has a known allergy to nuts. We are a nut free setting.

• Through discussion with parents and research reading, we obtain information about the dietary rules of the religious groups to which children and their parents belong, and of vegetarians and vegans, as well as about food allergies. We take account of this information in the provision of food and drinks.
• We provide a vegetarian alternative on days when meat or fish are offered and make every effort to ensure Halal meat or Kosher food is available for children who require it.
• We show sensitivity in providing for children’s diets and allergies. We do not use a child’s diet or allergy as a label for the child, or make a child feel singled out because of her/his diet or allergy.
• We organise meal and snack times so that they are social occasions in which children and adults participate.
• We use meal and snack times to help children to develop independence through making choices, serving food and drink and feeding themselves.
• We provide children with utensils that are appropriate for their ages and stages of development and that take account of the eating practices in their cultures.
• We have fresh drinking water available for the children. We inform the children about how to obtain the water and that they can ask for water at any time during the day and ask parents to provide named water bottles, which they take home to clean and refill.
• In accordance with parents’ wishes, we offer children arriving early in the morning, and/or staying late, an appropriate snack.
• We inform parents who provide food for their children about the storage facilities available in our setting. 
• In order to protect children with food allergies, we do not allow children from sharing and swapping their food with one another.
• For children who drink milk, we provide semi-skimmed pasteurised milk. 

 

Packed lunches 

Where we cannot provide cooked meals (holiday club and days where the school kitchen is closed) or parents choose to bring packed lunches, we:

• ensure packed lunches are refrigerated to keep food cool;
• inform parents of our policy on healthy eating;
• encourage parents to provide sandwiches with a healthy filling, fruit, and milk based deserts;
• discourage packed lunch contents that consist largely of crisps, processed foods and sweet products such as cakes or biscuits. We reserve the right to return this food to the parent;
• provide children bringing packed lunches with plates, cups and cutlery; and
• ensure that adults sit with children to while the children eat their lunch so that the mealtime is a social occasion.
• Due to allergies we have made the decision to not allow houmous or breadsticks to be included in lunchboxes.
• For safety reasons we also ask that small items such as mini sausages, baby tomatoes or grapes are cut in half to avoid them becoming a choking hazard.
• Please be aware that if children are sent in with sweets or chocolate we will send them back to you.

• All children are encouraged to still sit together and have a drink and all children and staff wash hands before and after snack and lunch times 
• They have the choice of having a snack in the morning and afternoon and sit in small groups. 

 

Legal framework

• Regulation (EC) 852/2004 of the European Parliament and of the Council on the Hygiene of Foodstuffs.

 

Further guidance

• Safer Food, Better Business (Food Standards Agency 2011)