Meals, snacks and nutrition

Offering food in your setting

Most childcare providers offer meals or snacks to some degree but whether you make children a sandwich or a hot meal it is just important to ensure that it is both nutritional and safe to eat. This section provides more information on what to do if you are a business preparing food on site and advice about offering nutritional meals and snacks.

What do you need to consider?

Here is a list of things you need to consider:

• Registering as a food business – it is important for childminders and groups to check if they need to register with the local authority as a food business
• Follow good practice guidelines on handling and preparing food
• Are you teaching the children about a healthy lifestyle?

New healthy eating guidelines for Early Years Settings: Redbridge Healthy Weight Team (NELFT) have issued new guidance on healthy eating, along with a summary of feedback received during the consultation period. See Related downloads to the right of the screen for more information.