Expert celebrity judges including Mary Berry, Greg James, Alex Jones, Joe Wicks and Jessica Ennis-Hill lend their support to prestigious awards

Awards will celebrate the brilliance, ingenuity, determination and creativity of people making food and food education great for the UK’s school children

23rd February: Jamie Oliver launched the Good School Food Awards launched last night on BBC 1’s The One Show. The awards celebrate the amazing catering teams, beautiful canteens, holiday programmes, campaigners and unsung heroes who, day in and day out, go the extra mile to make sure Britain’s school children are well nourished.

Starting in 1906, Britain has the oldest school meal system in the world. It now has a workforce larger than the Royal Navy and Air Force combined, serving nearly 5 million meals every day; that equates to about 41 meals per second.  After 17 years campaigning to improve school food, Jamie has set up the Good School Food Awards to recognise what excellence looks like. 

A panel of twenty expert judges will shortlist the awards and our stellar celebrity judges will have the final say. Mary Berry, Greg James, George Webster, Jessica-Ennis Hill, Big Has, Loyle Carner, Joe Wicks, Seema Pankhania and Jimi Famuwera will join Jamie as they judge winners across 8 different award categories: Catering Team Champions, Early Years Award, Sustainability Award, Governor or School Leader Food Hero, Youth Activist of 2023, Food Educator of 2023, Rising Star and the Community & Kindness Award.

Jamie Oliver, says: “We need to show big love to the food educators, teachers and catering teams that work so hard 190 days a year to feed our kids and teach them about the joy of food. I truly believe schools are our secret weapon. From the food they serve to the cooking skills they teach kids, they lay the foundation for children’s health and wellbeing, as well as their academic success and future productivity. These awards are all about celebrating what is brilliant in our school and wider food systems.”

Voting opens on 22nd February at www.jamieoliver.com/schoolfoodawards and nominees from across the UK will be shortlisted by the judges from April 23rd when applications close.  From 26th June, the winners will be unveiled on key media partners, The One Show, featuring the Rising Star Award, in the Sun (Catering Team Champions) and on Heart (Community & Kindness).  

The Good School Food Awards are open to nurseries, pre-school, primary and secondary non-paying schools and individuals who work in these schools. Applications need to be made via www.jamieoliver.com/schoolfoodawards. 

In addition to a golden spoon award, winners will also get some incredible money-can’t-buy prizes, from books to kit out a school library to celebrity cooking classes.  And, everyone in the winning catering team will receive a bumper prize package from Tefal that includes a Hard Anodised 5-piece pan set, an All in One Pan, Grillpan, 6-piece Knife Block, a signed copy of One-Pan Wonders and lots, lots more. 

Additional fun School Food Facts:

• In 2018, the nation’s favourite school meal was voted to be curry and rice.  What will it be in 2023?  We will find out through our website so enter the awards and enter your favourite school dinner.
• 60,000 16 year olds are doing exams in Food in the UK. There are 3899 food teachers in England
• Around 4.6 million school dinners are served each day across the UK
• There are 10.4 million pupils in the UK
• In the last year, over a third of the food on kids’ plates in Scotland was produced in Scotland. And that rises to three quarters of fresh and cooked meats and fresh fish and 98% of milk being Scottish milk!
• In the last year, approximately £1.4million eggs were delivered to Scottish schools and 184,000 tins of tomatoes!
• The most popular items included 3 million yoghurts being purchased every year and 8 million 189ml cartons of milk…