The curse of the turkey twizzler

As McCain has been telling us for years, not every chip contains enough fat to fuel the Olympic torch. And as Pure Organics has proved, it is possible to make food that appeals to children, but won't give them type two diabetes.

Whether you can do it in a school on a budget of 50-60p a meal is another matter, although this is more cash than schools had to play with last year, thanks to a certain celebrity chef.

While Jamie Oliver has lobbied tirelessly to improve school meals provision, the flip side of this has been a tendency by some elements within government and the media to class all 'processed' food as a health hazard, as if the fact that it has been produced on an industrial scale is more of a problem than what's actually in it.

This is not to let the industry off the hook, however. As one manufacturer points out in our feature on page 7, for every responsible supplier, there is another one flogging flavoured water to kids with more calories in it than coke.

None of which inspires much confidence in parents, who are not in any case very impressed with the industry's attempts at producing healthy and appealing products for their offspring (see page 11).

One thing is certain, though, the health lobby is not going to go away, and companies that are able to respond to it most effectively, with great products and the right marketing, are the most likely to succeed.