Lunchbox labour is back: here’s how Canada’s new school food program can grow

Authors:

• Jennifer Black | Associate Professor of Food, Nutrition and Health, University of British Columbia
• Rachel Engler-Stringer | Professor, Department of Community Health and Epidemiology, University of Saskatchewan

The grind of packing school lunches is returning for many families this fall. Ensuring children’s access to nutritious food at school is a daily act of care that fuels their learning, nutritional well-being and sense of connection.

But this essential work takes a toll on caregivers and family budgets.

Additional hurdles exist for food-insecure families whose children are twice as likely to report missing school lunch altogether.

School food has historically been the responsibility of individual families in Canada, deviating from most affluent countries with long histories of school-provided meals. But substantial changes are now underway following the 2024 launch of Canada’s first National School Food Policy and the National School Food Program.

As federal school food funding rolls out, developing rigorous, transparent and well-governed systems for collecting data and sharing lessons learned will be important. As school food scholars, we hope researchers, policymakers, schools and advocates can collaboratively nourish a culture of evidence-based policymaking to sustain programs into the future.