Children from St John’s Primary School enjoy the new menu with Contract Services’ mascot Trigger on Wednesday 5 November 2008. 

Tower Hamlets school children will be tucking into even healthier lunches from now on, as the council launched a new lunchtime menu for local schools this week. The new school lunch menu has been developed by the council’s Contract Services team, and includes tasty treats such as homemade lamb casserole, southern baked chicken and chilli beef. Chips are still only available once a week and potato croquettes have been  introduced as a new product. 

Baked beans reduced in salt and sugar are another healthier option included in the new menu, whilst brown and white bloomer bread is also available for the children to enjoy with their meal. A variety of fresh fruit will help the children get their “five a day”, and they’ll be able to polish off their new lunches with a selection of tasty desserts. 

The new menu includes 22 homemade main meals and fully meets the government’s tough new nutritional guidelines. Approved by the borough’s community dietician, the menu will give children in Tower Hamlets a mouth-watering selection of meals to choose from at lunchtime - all of which will help them to maintain a balanced diet. 

Michael Hales, Head of Contract Services at Tower Hamlets Council said: “This term’s menu has seen some changes to the format with us focussing on the most popular dishes to try and encourage more and more children to take the healthiest choice each day.   “We have worked both with our catering staff and schools themselves to develop a menu which will hopefully see school meal uptake continue to rise.” 

The council’s Contract Services team are able to use computer software to attain a full nutritional breakdown of all lunches on the new menu. This way they can be sure that students have real quality options available to them that meet nutritional guidelines and keep our kids healthy. Anyone can view the nutritional breakdown by visiting the menus page on this site