Out of the 21 high street restaurants and pubs, which included Jamie’s Italian, Prezzo and Harvester, among others, Wetherspoons placed fourth.
“Due to the fact that we give free fruit with every child’s meal and we have a standard price across the majority of our pubs, offering healthy balanced dishes for all of the children, it tends to be an easy eat-out option for many parents,” said Jennings.
Offered healthy ready meals
Other pubs that wanted to ensure they too offered healthy meal options should offer things such as fruit juices and water as part of a children’s meal deal, as well as a free item of seasonal fruit.
“They then don’t necessarily want to look for the sugary drink that they might usually choose [if you do],” Jennings added.
The Soil Association released its list of foodservice venues with the healthiest and unhealthiest children’s meals yesterday (21 October).
Healthy food options for children
Listen to this podcast to hear what else Jennings had to say about healthy food options for children in pubs.
Find out what other top tips the Soil Association, Harvester and Wetherspoons have for pubs that want to offer healthy meals for children here.
Meanwhile, Joanna Lewis, strategy and policy director at the Soil Association, said the organisation wanted to see more pubs and restaurants label their menus with detailed nutritional information.