Attractions slash children’s meals as cost-of-living crisis bites
- Kids’ health “taking the hit” as popular visitor attractions struggle to bounce back post-pandemic with children’s menus scaled back or removed entirely
- New healthy eating league table calls out venues who fail to offer child portions, vegetables and healthy snacks on days out
- Finding good food for kids “is the real roller coaster” at UK attractions, with parents complaining of a lack of choice and kids being “maxed out” kids with junk food and sugary treats
- Drayton Manor named the unhealthiest of 16 family attractions at bottom of the league table
- Nine visitor attractions commit to serving veg with every kid’s meal in response to the Soil Association’s Out to Lunch campaign
Visitor attractions are “slicing, dicing and ditching” children’s menus as they battle with rising ingredient costs and staff shortages, a new Soil Association campaign has revealed.
The food and farming charity has ranked 16 of the UK’s leading attractions in a new league table after an army of “secret diner” parents helped to assess the quality of food on offer.
The investigation found children’s menus are suffering as venues and caterers face huge pressures following Covid-19 closures and ongoing staffing and supply chain disruption linked to Brexit and the Ukraine war.
Parents reported a lack of options with children’s menus removed entirely or smaller than before the pandemic. Children aren’t offered hot meals at almost half of venues and several only offered “nutritionally inadequate” packed lunches lacking fruit or veg.
A lack of kids’ meals and an abundance of sugary treats saw Drayton Manor take bottom place in the league table – while the Eden Project came top by serving balanced meals with local, fresh, sustainable ingredients.
Soil Association Head of Food Policy Rob Percival said: “It’s alarming that venues are slicing, dicing, or ditching child appropriate menus. It’s a tough environment for caterers, who are grappling with staff shortages and rising ingredients costs, but it’s disappointing that children’s health seems to be taking the hit.
“In a cost-of-living crisis, when every penny counts, parents should not be forced to buy large adult portions or waste money on nutritionally inadequate meals for their children.”
The investigation found having a range of children’s meals and healthy options were the top priorities for parents on a day out. More than half of parents surveyed chose one of these options as their number one priority, compared to just 1% who picked “treat” or “junk” food.1
But less than half of these leading attractions are serving veg with every kid’s meal – while adults are offered a much larger and diverse menu with more choices to eat healthily.
Percival added: “Everyone likes a treat, but our secret diner parents told us they want diverse and exciting children’s menus. They also want attractions to make it easy for their youngsters to enjoy a healthy meal on days out – some of these attractions simply must do better.
“It’s essential that venues take responsibility for how family days out shape expectations around ‘treat food’. They must stop promoting an unhealthy ideal which, parents tell us, tracks back home.
“Offering more veg and less fried or sugary food isn’t that difficult or expensive. In fact, there is little variation in meal prices between the top and bottom of the league table, and several high performing attractions have free entry.
“Finding good food for kids is the real roller coaster at UK attractions, but there are some great examples of caterers who do put children’s health first. The others must catch up.”
The investigation found that the higher quality meals at the top two attractions are also among the more affordable days out. Second place holder Royal Botanic Gardens Edinburgh doesn’t charge for entry and eating out at league table leader Eden Project costs just 24p more than dining with bottom-place Drayton Manor.
Becky Fenner, Eden’s Hospitality Manager, said: “We are delighted to have come top of the Out to Lunch league table. The Eden Project’s mission centres around building relationships between people and planet to demonstrate the power of working together for the benefit of all living things.
“Central to this is our food story. We explore ways to deliver Earth-friendly food at scale using a food system rather than a food product approach, finding ways of producing food in a regenerative system that is climate positive, increases biodiversity and enhances soil health. Healthy planet – healthy people.”
Kids targeted with junk
Parents raised concerns that junk food was being marketed directly to young children.
Secret diners at Drayton Manor reported tactical junk food placements across the site with doughnuts and sweets at checkouts and no healthy snacks available.
Secret diner Eve Thomas visited Drayton Manor with her two children, aged three and seven. She said: “I was surprised at how few healthy options were available. Thomas Land had two shops just for sweets and they were big cartons not novelty sized!
“Some rides also required you to walk through the shop after, where there were tubs of sweets and candy floss everywhere. With kids now learning about healthy eating at school, it would have been nice for Thomas and friends to be supporting these messages.
“Plus, in the restaurant they had doughnuts prominently at the counter, which hooked my two in. It was hard to buy fruit shoots, milk, or juice options – it was mostly fizzy drinks on offer.”
Legoland – the most expensive day out on the table – came in at position 13 after making little progress since it bottomed the previous league table in 2018.
The attraction has failed to meet its pledge from four years ago to serve veg with every kid’s meal, and fried food remains the dominant food on offer.
Maxed out with sugar
Soil Association experts were also disappointed to see high quantities of sugar at many venues, particularly those near the bottom of the table.
Percival added: “These family attractions need to lay off the sugar. A shocking 80% of desserts stated to be suitable for children across the attractions contain 19g of sugar or more, blowing a four-to-six-year-old child’s daily sugar allowance in one go.
“And what’s worse is the sugar content is rarely advertised so parents faced with ‘pester power’ from their kids can’t even make informed decisions.”
Whipsnade Zoo’s chocolate brownie, aimed at both adults and children, was the worst offender containing 73g of sugar. This is more than twice the recommended daily allowance for adults (30g) and nearly four times the limit for four- to six-year-olds (19g).
Drayton Manor secret diner Eve added: “By the drive home the kids even headed to the fruit boxes at the service station – they knew they had maxed out.”
The Soil Association is calling for attractions to:
- Improve the food offering for children, including putting hot meals back on kids’ menus and making child-sized portions available.
- Serve at least one portion of vegetable with every kid’s meal.
- Support healthier choices by offering healthier snacks and reducing the availability and visibility of high sugar and ultra-processed snacks.
- Switch to UK farm assured meat and higher welfare animal products, such as organic.
- Make sure free drinking water is readily available around the attraction including in restaurants
For more information on the campaign and for a full profile for each attraction, visit www.soilassociation.org/outtolunch.
