Swedish school meals for every child – the past, the present & the future: A School Meals Coalition Week session

School Meals Coalition Week (10-14th of October), a virtual event for which you can register here, includes up to 25 virtual sessions over 5 days bringing together over 20 governments and partners to showcase the robust array of action happening across the Coalition. Two of the SchoolFood4Change partners are also partners in the Coalition; ICLEI and WWF Sweden.

The week will highlight notable areas where the Coalition needs more focus and collaboration in order to achieve its goal of ensuring every child has access to a healthy meal in school by 2030, especially during this time of global food and education crises.

Swedish school meals for every child – the past, the present & the future: 10th of October, 2.35 pm (CET)

This session will give attendees a background to the Swedish school meals system and a guided tour of how societal challenges can be met through working toward sustainable school meals programmes. The Swedish Food Agency will give the audience a run-through of Swedish school meals from the 19th century until today, with important milestones and unresolved issues. Looking towards the future, two ongoing school meal projects with innovative and systemic approaches will be presented. Both projects emphasize the important roles that regional and local governments have in the transition, with strong support from national governments, important stakeholders and civil society. The project, A new recipe for school meals, has a national (Swedish) focus, and the project SchoolFood4Change has a broader European scope. Together they are focusing on sharing best practices, finding important leverage points for system change and shifting existing school meal systems into more sustainable ones for both people and planet.

The session will share collective knowledge, experiences, challenges, and innovative approaches to transforming an old institutional tradition with close to 100 years of history in Sweden – school lunches. The session is organized by The Swedish Food Agency in collaboration with WWF Sweden (World Wide Fund for Nature). ICLEI Europe – Local Governments for Sustainability, will be moderating the session. ICLEI is the world’s leading network of local and regional governments committed to sustainable development. ICLEI believes that local action drives global change, and the leadership of local and regional governments can make a major difference in addressing complex environmental, economic and social challenges.

Moderator: Amalia Ochoa, ICLEI Europe

Speakers:
Emelie Eriksson, Swedish Food Agency
Elin Sandström, Swedish Food Agency
Ulrika Backlund, WWF Sweden
as well as speakers from the City of Malmö and Vallentuna municipality in Sweden.

How do I register?

Register to the School Meals Coalition event per day and build your itinerary here.