Students at Mariebergsskolan, a secondary school in Karlstad, Sweden, make their way to the canteen to grab a juice shot. This morning’s options include ginger and lemon, apple, golden milk, lemon and mint, or strawberry and orange. There’s also the choice of overnight oats with caramelised milk.
It’s just after 9am and the space is usually empty, but thanks to a project launched in 2018 by Vinnova, Sweden’s national innovation agency, students are starting their day with a boost from the energy bar. All the ingredients are donated by local supermarkets which are giving away surplus fruit and vegetables to minimise food waste.
Mariebergsskolan was one of a handful of schools to take part in the project and alongside the energy station, the canteen has also been transformed with input from students in workshops. It now resembles a cosy restaurant, with curtains to help absorb sound, cream-coloured walls and a variety of seating options.
“One of the things students asked for was to choose seating based on their mood,” says Linnea Olsson Lee, a food strategist based in Karlstad. “Sometimes you want to sit on your own – we’ve added bar stools facing the window for that – without feeling observed. Other times you want to sit in a large group at the communal table, or in smaller, more intimate groups. We’ve tried to create different zones. Now students are genuinely proud of their school restaurant.”
The pilot project, launched in partnership with seven government agencies, including the Swedish Food Agency (Livsmedelsverket), has meant students are more inclined to stay at school rather than head to the nearest kiosk for sweets.
Teachers have also noticed that students seem more engaged. Olsson Lee recalls one student saying in a workshop: “If there’s a free alternative at school, then I might consider eating something healthy.” The goal, she explains, has been to gently challenge students with new flavours and textures – and it’s working.
Another benefit of the work has been an initiative funded by the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency (Naturvårdsverket), which makes it easier for public-sector chefs to order locally grown produce.
Sweden’s universal school-meal programme serves about 2m meals daily (at a cost of 7bn Swedish kronor [£553m]) and is rooted in the welfare state model known as “folkhem”, launched in the 1930s. Free school meals were introduced in 1946 and since 2011 it has been a legal requirement that they be nutritious.
However, in 2018, the Swedish Food Agency flagged that school meals were not contributing to growing issues around healthy eating and sustainability. In response, Vinnova set up a joint food programme to work towards the aim that all pupils should eat tasty and sustainable food. Behind that lay a bigger idea: progress in school meal sustainability would act as a lever to transform Sweden’s broader food system.
There were workshops for students, local food producers and town councils, and the Swedish Food Agency came up with ideas for change based on a system they call the “snowball method”: starting with small, local, bottom-up activities and then growing in scale.
The pilot scheme has been drawn on for Sweden’s national food strategy 2.0 and the 2025 guidelines for school meals.
Alexander Alvsilver, the area lead for future-proof society at Vinnova, does worry about who will take over when Vinnova steps away from the initiative. The climate crisis, the need for resilient local food systems and rising child obesity levels show the challenge won’t be solved by one actor or one project, he says. “Key players need to step in or step up. Together,” Alvsilver says.
“That’s what the work on scaling up the prototypes has brought to light,” he adds. “They have the potential to shift decision-making from assumptions to early-stage data. However, prototyping is based on design thinking – a method not yet part of the standard skillset in most government agencies.”
Follow-up work is continuing in Karlstad and elsewhere. A recent initiative has promised 1m Swedish kronor (about £80,000) to a shared activity among students on the condition they help reduce food waste. For each kilogram of wasted food, the promised sum is reduced, monitored by a digital counter at school canteens and available to view online. At present, it stands at 96,790 SEK – a result of a 1.7-tonne reduction in food waste compared with the previous year.
At Mariebergsskolan, more students are heading to the energy bar, keen to try the different combinations of juice. A group of boys chat animatedly at one of the communal tables as they tuck into overnight oats.
Despite the success, however, Olsson Lee also acknowledges some of the challenges. “In Sweden, we sometimes take free school meals for granted,” she says. “We spend a lot of money on them, so we need to use them as an optimal resource. It’s still a challenge to secure funding for renovations, for making changes – or even finding the time.
“Fortunately, the work we’ve done has earned us credibility when speaking to politicians. For some students, this may be the only cooked meal they eat in a day. It’s also a way to help reduce socioeconomic inequalities. In the end, you have to see it as something that must be done step by step.”
