BBH London Serves Up School Food Crisis on a plate

The School Food Project and Angela Hartnett trick diners into eating real school meals at fake pop-up tasting experience

By Creative Salon

14 September 2026

To coincide with the government’s rollout of updated school food standards, BBH London has worked with The School Food Project on a campaign to show parents the real quality of school food, and how they can help change it.

The School Food Project has been created by a coalition of charities and food organisations dedicated to improving child nutrition and school food across the UK including Bite Back, Chefs in Schools, School Food Matters, The Food Foundation and the Jamie Oliver Group.

The coalition has been set up to support schools to transform school food, improve food education and serve delicious meals to children and young people up and down the country.

For the launch, BBH London created a fake pop-up tasting experience fronted by renowned British chef Angela Hartnett, to serve real school meals to unsuspecting diners.

The activation was based on a simple insight: while the debate around school food is often framed around children's experiences, adults may respond differently if they were confronted with the same food themselves. The aim is to start a nationwide movement that empowers families to demand healthier, higher-quality school meals while encouraging schools and catering providers to raise food standards.

Named Centena, an anagram of ‘canteen’, the experience was presented to guests as Angela Hartnett’s latest dining venture. In reality, she designed neither the dishes nor the menu.

Instead, diners were first surprised by being served school meals, including processed chicken burgers, stale burger buns, soggy chips and cold, congealed baked beans before being shown what good looks like through dishes designed to demonstrate that a change in school food standards is possible.

Guests’ reactions were captured for a social media film directing people to the project’s website hub created to empower families to sign their schools up for help from the School Food Project.

Naomi Duncan, CEO of Chefs in Schools, one of the School Food Project partners said, “This is a huge moment for school food. What we consistently hear from children and young people is that they care about taste, flavour and nutrition and are far more willing to be adventurous with food than we might imagine. New standards mean an exciting opportunity to translate Government ambition into tasty food that children will enjoy. The School Food Project has been set up to support schools and caterers to make that transition, and we hope many schools will sign up to our Hub for support as the new standards are released.”

Karen Martin, CEO of BBH London and Dublin said: “The work the School Food Project is doing is vital: to show parents that good school food really is possible. We’re so proud to have supported members of the Project’s coalition for many years now and look forward to working together moving forwards.”

The campaign launch coincides with the government rollout of updated school food standards, with a particular focus on secondary schools. Changes in school food standards are due to be enforced from September 2027, but the government is expecting schools to roll out healthier meal options straight away.

Credits:

Ad agency: BBH London

CCO, London & Dublin: Felipe Serradourada Guimarães

Deputy Executive Creative Director: Charlene Chandrasekaran

Associate Creative Director: Charlie Pendarves

Design Director: Oded Shein

Senior Motion Designer: Seb Camilleri

Motion Designer: Nawaraj Gurung

Brand & Design team: Jiwoo Kim, Lucia Volpe, George Goldstack and Keiti Collins

Head of Experience Production: Susan Liu

Snr Experience Producer: Tash Allen

Agency Film Producers: Tina Mwazange & Rebecca Ellis