Elementary school children in the north of England and the Midlands are more likely to be eating sustainable seafood than their counterparts in the south of the country, according to a report published by the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC).
MSC published its first “end of the year report” to assess how well-prepared elementary schools are across England for the School Food Standards released in June.
Using data from its chain of custody program MSC found “dramatic differences” in regional trends across England’s 156 local education authorities.Of the 2,416 state-funded elementary schools that serve certified sustainable fish in their cafeterias, 1,456 schools are in the north of England and the Midlands, while the combined figure for the south-west, south-east and London is 951.
Mandatory sustainable fish standards for government departments, agencies, prisons and parts of the armed forces were introduced in 2011. From January 2015, new School Food Standards will become mandatory and contain recommendations that schools “choose fish from verifiably sustainable sources and ideally MSC.”
In the Midlands, Solihull was awarded an A+ grade, while Birmingham and Coventry were each awarded an A. In the north, Bolton, Cheshire East & West, Durham, Oldham, Stockport and Tameside were graded at A, bringing the regional grade to an A, despite Yorkshire being entirely unrepresented.
In the south-east, Brighton & Hove was graded A+, while Oxfordshire and Norfolk were graded C, bringing the regional grade to a C. Meanwhile, the south-west only reached a D grade because of very low representation.
In London, Camden, Merton, Waltham Forest and Tower Hamlets were graded A*, Barking & Dagenham and Kensington & Chelsea and earned a grade A, while Greenwich and Islington were awarded B grades.
But just 42 of England’s 156 LEAs have chosen MSC-certified supplies, with many of those 42 LEAs being represented by only one or two schools.
Although only 14 percent of England’s 16,784 state-funded elementary schools currently provide a choice of certified sustainable fish in cafeterias, that already equates to an estimated 640,000 of the 4.3 million state primary school children in England, more than 400,000 of them in the Midlands and north of England.
