UK makes pulses compulsory and adds fortified pea milk to school food standards

What Happened

England's updated school food standards, published September 15, 2026, require primary schools to serve beans, lentils or chickpeas at least once a week alongside main meals (once every two weeks for secondary schools during a one-year transition), reclassify baked beans as a protein rather than a vegetable, and add fortified pea milk and qualifying plant-based yogurt to the list of permitted options alongside unsweetened oat and soy milk. The standards also cap processed meat at once weekly, limit cheese-as-main-ingredient to twice weekly, and ban deep-fried food outright.

Why It Matters

Over 90% of British children fall short on fiber and roughly 84-85% exceed saturated fat guidelines, per the standards' own rationale — this is a rare case of a national procurement rule directly engineering pulses and a specific plant milk into a captive audience's diet rather than leaving reformulation to industry.

Baked beans are no longer a vegetable — they're now a protein.

FET's Takeaway

Naming fortified pea milk specifically (not just 'plant-based milk') is the detail worth flagging — it sets a de facto fortification/nutrient-equivalence bar that pea-protein dairy-alternative formulators now have a captive, large-volume market to hit.