Rating 2.0: How Healthy and Sustainable Is Your School Food?
An updated tool to assess the quality of school menus and help improve school food services across Italy.
After ten years of monitoring school menus across Italy, Foodinsider introduces Rating 2.0, the new version of its Menu a Punti (Menu Scorecard) questionnaire. This updated tool takes a broader approach to assessing school food quality, bringing together health, environmental sustainability, culinary quality, and responsible food supply chains.
Rating 2.0 goes beyond assessing what is served on the plate to explore the choices behind the menu: from food diversity and the quality of meal preparation to ingredient sourcing, food waste monitoring, transparency, and family involvement.
What Does Rating 2.0 Assess?
The questionnaire includes 38 questions covering 7 key areas:
Food Biodiversity: The variety of grains, vegetables, legumes, and fish and seafood species featured on the menu.
Health: The balance of different protein sources and the inclusion of foods that support a healthy, balanced diet.
Processed and Ultra-Processed Foods: How frequently industrially processed and ultra-processed food products appear on the menu.
Culinary Quality: How effectively school kitchens make the most of ingredients, particularly vegetables, through creative and appealing dishes.
Food Quality and Sustainable Local Supply Chains: Attention to ingredient origins, organic farming, local food supply chains, and socially responsible sourcing practices.
Circular Economy: Monitoring food waste to better understand how much of the food served is actually consumed.
Participatory Governance: Transparency of information and the involvement of the school community in improving food service quality.
How Does It Work?
All you need to complete the questionnaire is your school’s menu and, for a few questions, some additional information about how the school food service operates — information you may already be familiar with.
Each answer receives a score based on how closely it aligns with relevant scientific recommendations, regulatory standards, and the principles of healthy and sustainable school food. The results highlight your school’s menu strengths and identify areas where improvements can be made.
Rating 2.0 is more than just a ranking system. Above all, it is a tool for understanding, assessment, and constructive dialogue, designed to help parents, school meal committees, local authorities, food service providers, and public health authorities work together towards healthier, higher-quality, and more sustainable school meals.
Why Assess Your School Menu?
Completing the Rating 2.0 questionnaire gives you a fresh perspective on your school’s food offer, helping you identify opportunities for improvement. By encouraging gradual change and active participation from the school community, Rating 2.0 aims to support the transition towards healthier, more sustainable school meals that contribute to a better future for children and their local communities.
Fill in the form one question at a time, starting from the monthly menu of your school canteen. Each answer carries a score: at the end you get the total score and the breakdown for each evaluation area.
Privacy notice
What we record. When you complete the questionnaire, the following are saved: the name of the municipality or school (if you enter it), the date and time of completion, the total score, the level reached and the score of each area. We do not ask for names, e-mail addresses or other personal data: please do not enter any.
Why. The data is used for statistical analysis and for the rating of school menus by Foodinsider.it.
Where and for how long. The data is saved in a Google Sheet managed by Foodinsider.it, the data controller (contact details in the site’s Privacy Policy), and is kept for as long as necessary for the purposes stated. Google provides the storage service.
Your rights. You can request access, rectification or deletion of your data by writing to the contacts listed in the Foodinsider.it Privacy Policy.
By clicking “Start the questionnaire” you declare that you have read this notice.