Plant-Based Meals for Climate Friendly Catering

Recent years have seen increased attention to the impact of food choices on the climate. The National Food Strategy (NFS), an independent review looking into food policy in England, hit the headlines last year with its recommendation of cutting meat consumption 30% by 2050. The NFS highlighted the role of public sector catering as an important policy lever to enable wider behaviour change, something the UK Committee on Climate Change has also mentioned in its own recommendations to Government. But commitments to increase plant-based provision and procurement in the public sector were absent from the government’s own strategy published in June. An initiative to improve plant-based catering in schools, which had been briefed to the press in the week leading up to its publication, was also conspicuously absent. However, the announcement did come alongside a long-awaited consultation into Public Sector Food and Catering Policy. With this review into public sector procurement, and further debates on food policy expected this year, there is still an opportunity to make changes and support caterers in offering more vegan and vegetarian options. Public sector employees are invited to attend the event and ask questions to our panel of speakers, including Anna Taylor, CEO of The Food Foundation, Phil Rees-Jones, Chair of TUCO, and representatives from Oxfordshire County Council, who passed an ambitious motion to provide plant-based meals during council-catered events and improving plant-based catering in their schools. The VegAPPG is a cross party group of MPs, sponsored by The Vegan Society and V for Life, which provides a forum for discussing issues around vegetarianism and veganism.