Food for Life Served Here standards

The Food for Life Served Here certification is an independent endorsement backed by annual audits. It's for food providers who are taking steps to improve the food they serve.

The aim of the scheme is to encourage and reward caterers who:

• serve fresh food
• source environmentally sustainable and ethical food
• make healthy eating easy, and
• champion local food producers.

We work with caterers across all sectors from schools to visitor attractions, individual businesses to vast public sector catering organisations. 

Read more about Food for Life Served Here, including information on how to enroll.

2025 Bronze standards update

In March 2025, we updated our Food for Life Served Here bronze certification standards to reflect the pace of change in the food industry. We want to continue to celebrate the hard work of caterers who are continuing to serve up healthy and sustainable food despite tighter budgets, fewer resources and a turbulent policy environment.

We asked caterers – both those with and without Food for Life certification – and other expert stakeholders for their input on these standards updates. The results of this consultation have undergone high levels of scrutiny and governance to ensure the finalised standards are ambitious yet achievable.

Read more about the updated bronze standards.

How are Food for Life Served Here standards set?

Our standards-setting process has high levels of scrutiny and governance. Our standards aim to be stretching and ambitious, yet practical and achievable.

The Food for Life Served Here standards are set by an independent Standards Task and Finish Group, formed of industry experts from each sector in which the scheme operates.

Recruitment to the Food for Life Served Here (FFLSH) Task and Finish Group takes place through an open process at the Chair's discretion. The Chair is appointed by the Chair of the Soil Association Standards Board, who is appointed by our Board of Trustees.

Vacancies for the Food for Life Served Here Standards Committee are always advertised on our Work with us page and in Food for Life Served Here e-news.

Changes to the standards

The process of developing the Food for Life Served Here standards, follows the same principles as the development of the Soil Association organic standards.

Proposals to amend the standards are considered by the FFLSH Task and Finish Group. They discuss proposals in detail to ensure that any standards changes would have the right impact. If they agree a proposal would enhance the relevance of the standards, passes the impact filters and is in line with the objectives and principles of the FFLSH Award, they conduct a public consultation.

We follow the ISEAL guidelines for sustainability standard-setting to ensure that our standard-setting approach is open and transparent. Consultations are open for 60 days and are always publicised on our website and in FFLSH e-news.

We welcome feedback from caterers, industry experts and members of the public. All consultation feedback is taken into account and a final recommendation is made to our independent Standards Board, which takes a strategic overview of all of our standard-setting activity. Lay members sit on the Standards Board, to ensure that its recommendations are in line with public and consumer expectations.

The Standards Board reports into our Board of Trustees, which is responsible for overseeing all the work of the Soil Association Group.

We are open and transparent and encourage everyone to play their part in this process, particularly through our public consultations on standards proposals.