Nutrition in the first 1,000 days of life is critical for child development, shaping brain development, motor skills, and lifelong eating patterns that influence long-term health. Despite the known importance of nutrition in a child’s earliest years, nutrition support in settings has historically prioritised schools and advocacy in the early years nutrition space has been fragmented, leaving the sector overlooked and under-resourced.
Impact on Urban Health recognised that food provision in early years settings needed stronger evidence and clearer, more coordinated advocacy. In response, they established the Early Years Food Coalition, bringing together 30 organisations including academics, NGOs, local authorities and early education providers, to strengthen collective advocacy and build a more robust evidence base.
Bremner & Co serve as secretariat to the coalition; coordinating coalition activity, guiding the shared advocacy agenda, and identifying opportunities for engaging policymakers and the wider sector.
Our Approach
Our work is built around three interconnected areas:
Strengthening governance and convening the coalition.
We convene members from across the sector – including NGOs, academics, local authorities, early education providers, and campaigners – to connect, share insight and coordinate action around shared challenges for more effective advocacy. Practitioner and parent advisory groups are being developed to centre frontline perspectives in policy change. The coalition’s work is grounded in a commitment to race and health equity, ensuring that communities who experience the greatest inequalities are centred in both research and advocacy
Building the evidence base.
To address critical knowledge gaps, we commission and undertake targeted research. This includes our work with Sheffield Hallam University, whose research built a clearer understanding of what children are eating in early years settings. We also published our own analysis on barriers to accessing free early years meals, which revealed how gaps in policy design – particularly restrictive eligibility criteria – meant that fewer than 4% of children in formal childcare were receiving free school meals, in contrast to 30% in schools. This research reinforced the need to shift policy focus and identified practical policy levers to improve uptake and equity.
Coordinated collective advocacy.
We translate research into shared policy asks and align advocacy with national policy priorities. This includes building relationships with DfE and MPs through events such as an early years takeover of the School Food APPG, timing activity around key media moments, such as the Food Foundation’s Early Years report, and coordinating coalition responses to consultations.
As a result, we have strengthened the collective voice for improving food in the early years. Following the Best Start in Life strategy, we have helped shift and sustain policy attention; maintaining momentum as the government aims to raise healthiest generation ever.
Key Outcomes
The coalition has created a stronger, more unified voice for early years food, with members better connected and aligned behind shared priorities. The coalition’s advocacy is explicitly oriented towards reducing health inequalities, with health and race equity a thread running through its evidence base and its policy asks.
A more robust evidence base underpins this advocacy work, equipping the sector with credible, actionable research that has strengthened engagement with MPs and policymakers and ensures policy asks are grounded in lived experience.
Together, with coordinated consultation responses and strategic advocacy, early years food has gained greater visibility within national policy discussions. More specifically, the coalition has contributed to shaping the Early Years Statutory Framework guidance on nutrition and is now prioritising for food provision to be recognised as a core consideration in the forthcoming Early Years funding review, responding to the challenges settings face in providing nutritious meals to children in their care. port they need to meet their breastfeeding and infant feeding goals.
The team behind the EYFC work are diligent and dedicated experts who deliver a really impressive campaign, and are always helpful and collaborative with organisations working across issues on food and children’s health. They are our first port of call when we look for expertise on early years settings and nutrition.
Alfred Slade, Government Affairs Lead, Obesity Health Alliance
The Early Years Food Coalition is doing great work bringing together stakeholders and advocating for young children’s food and nutrition to be given much higher profile. It’s really timely to be reminding government that their Best Start in Life policy needs to ensure children have access to high quality nutrition and that early years providers are funded to provide it, as well as having appropriate guidance to work to.
Beatrice Merrick, CEO, Early Education
Early years food has historically been overlooked. What the coalition has achieved is a genuine shift in how seriously it is taken at a national level. That is down to members – their commitment, their knowledge, and their willingness to speak with one voice.
Dayna Brackley, Coalition Coordinator, Bremner & Co
Our Services
This work demonstrates Bremner & Co’s strength in convening and coalition building. Our policy expertise and established networks across the early years ecosystem enable us to bring together a diverse range of stakeholders and facilitate collective advocacy behind shared priorities. As with all our work, our approach is underpinned by a clear commitment to building a more equitable food system; ensuring collaboration is inclusive and values-led.
It also reflects our work at the intersection of evidence and advocacy – by commissioning targeted studies that address priority knowledge gaps, we then translate findings into policy-ready outputs that speak directly to government – grounding policy asks in credible evidence, and ensuring they get heard.
If you’re looking for a partner who can convene a diverse range stakeholders behind a shared ambition for change, get in touch today.
