How many more children in your area could become entitled to free school meals when the scheme expands to all households on Universal Credit? Bremner & Co have built an interactive data tool that compares free school meal registrations with Universal Credit households for every council in England, giving you the headline national picture at […]
Free School Meals Data Explorer Read More »
Over February and March, the team travelled everywhere from Blackpool to Birmingham, City Hall to Oxford, joining conversations with researchers, practitioners, policymakers and local authorities working to improve food systems across the UK. Discussions centred on how policy can help create healthier and more equitable food environments, from auto-enrolment and commercial baby food reform to strengthening support for early years
Myles has written a guest blog for The Food Foundation on why school food funding needs urgent attention ahead of September 2026. From September 2026, the expansion of Free School Meals and the introduction of updated school food standards will come into effect at the same time. Together, these are important steps for children’s health
Myles writes for The Food Foundation on school food funding Read More »
The County Councils Network has published a new Dialogues report on free school meals, developed in partnership with Basis and Bremner & Co. We are pleased to have supported this work alongside colleagues across the sector. It reflects a growing focus among councils on how to ensure that children who are entitled to free school meals are actually receiving them, and
New County Council Network report on free school meals is published Read More »
This month, I was pleased to author an article on our free early years meals (FEYM) research for Nursery World’s EYE Early Years Educator (EYE) supplement. Writing it several months on from when the research was originally published provided an opportunity to reflect on how much has moved on even in that short time, and how the findings continue to shape our conversations across
Still Too Young To Count? Reflecting six months on Read More »
We are pleased to co-author the latest paper from the FixOurFood research consortium. This paper evaluates the implementation of free school meal auto-enrolment, highlighting the potential benefits, conditions for success and support needed to scale this approach. The free school meal registration problem – project context An estimated 220,000 entitled children miss out on free school meals because they are not registered, with schools missing out on vital, associated Pupil Premium funding. One of the main reasons families
January started at pace. Through conversations on school food funding, farming systems, racial justice, early years nutrition and infant feeding, the team were excited to kick start 2026 with a variety of events. We’ve taken a moment to reflect on where we have spent our time, and what it could mean for the months to come. 8th Jan School Food Funding – Caterer Roundtable Myles joined a School
As the Bremner & Co team sign off for 2025, we have been reflecting on what has been a genuinely significant year for food policy and practice. Across children’s nutrition and the wider food system, we have seen meaningful progress, not only in policy change, but in the growing momentum behind a fairer, healthier approach to
10 moments that shaped food policy in 2025 Read More »
Across the country, councils are working hard to make sure every child has access to good food, whether through early years support, free school meals or wider healthy weight or anti-poverty strategies. But we know how complex this can be. Food provision across childhood often sits across multiple teams, services and settings, making it hard
Working with councils to improve child health and tackle inequalities Read More »
Press release A new report – ‘Too young to count’ – reveals that, despite rising hunger and poverty, most children in childcare are excluded from free meal support. Read exclusive coverage in The Independent here. Nearly 300,000 young children in poverty will miss out on free meals in nurseries and childcare settings, according to a
New report: 290,000 disadvantaged young children will miss out on free meals Read More »
