Caps on Salt and Sugar, One Free Meal for Every Grade: Ukraine’s School Lunches

From September 2026, Ukraine’s public schools have moved to a system in which every student from grade 1 through grade 11 (grade 12 for grade levels that have moved to the 12-year system) receives one free hot meal a day. The content of school meals itself was also substantially rewritten under national standards in 2021. Both are part of a school-meal reform that began in 2020.

The following is based on Cabinet resolutions (versions accessed in the Verkhovna Rada’s legislative database on September 24, 2026) and announcements from “Znaimo” (znaimo.gov.ua), the official school-meals website run by the Ministry of Education and Science and others. This article does not address nutritional or health judgments; it introduces the rules set out in the resolutions.

The Reform That Began in 2020

According to Znaimo, the school-meals reform began in 2020 and has been driven by an initiative of First Lady Olena Zelenska. It is carried out by the Ministry of Education and Science, the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Economy and other ministries, along with food-safety oversight bodies, with support from UNICEF and a Swiss cooperation project, among others.

The Cabinet adopted an implementation plan for the reform on August 5, 2020 (Order No. 1008-r), and on October 27, 2023 approved the “Strategy for Reforming the School Meals System Through 2027” (Order No. 990-r). As a picture of the situation before the reform, the Strategy cites a survey finding that, in the 2020/21 school year, only 35.5% of students regularly ate meals at school, and 30% had never done so.

What the New 2021 Standards Established

The content of school meals is set by Cabinet Resolution No. 305, “On Approving the Nutrition Standards and Procedure for Organizing Meals at Educational Institutions and Children’s Health and Recreation Facilities” (March 24, 2021). It replaced the 2004 standards (No. 1591), and its main provisions have been in use since September 1, 2021. The main rules from the text of the resolution are as follows.

Sugar and Salt

• Sugar added when preparing a dish: up to 5 grams per 100 grams (100 milliliters) of the finished dish
• Foods sold in school shops and vending machines, and foods used in cooking: sugars up to 10 grams per 100 grams. Sugars naturally present in fruit and similar foods are not counted
• No serving of foods with added sweeteners, synthetic coloring, flavorings (except vanillin and similar), or umami and other seasoning additives
• Only iodized salt is used, and the amount is kept low

What May Not Be Used at School

Paragraph 47 of the procedure in the resolution lists items that may not be ordered, used, or sold at school.

• Processed meat and fish products; the meat and eggs of ducks and other waterfowl; river fish
• Items exceeding 0.12 grams of sodium per 100 grams (including snacks), and items exceeding 10 grams of sugars per 100 grams
• Coffee and coffee-based drinks; carbonated drinks (including sweetened sodas and energy drinks)
• Mushrooms; unpasteurized milk and dairy products; home-cooked food
• Factory-made canned goods (except pasteurized juice with no added sugar or sweeteners)

The same paragraph also bans preparing deep-fried foods (fritiur), aspic (kholodets), meat or fish salads, pâtés and the like at school. On the other hand, it also includes recommendations such as pairing meat dishes with vegetable side dishes or salads wherever possible, and serving legumes as a side dish or a dish of their own.

Mealtimes

Students in grades 1 through 11 (12) are to be provided with at least one hot meal — breakfast before noon, or lunch from 11:30 a.m. — even where classes are held in shifts. The mealtime break is at least 30 minutes for grades 1–4, and at least 20 minutes for grades 5–11 (12).

Who the Free Meal Was Extended To, and From Whom

Free meals were originally limited to specific children. Paragraph 4 of the procedure under Resolution No. 305 lists, as recipients of a free hot meal funded by local budgets, orphans and children without parental care, children with special educational needs studying in special or inclusive classes, children from low-income families, internally displaced children, and children affected by combat or armed conflict, among others.

From there, eligibility was expanded as follows.

The total allocation under Resolution No. 869 is 7,447,099,300 hryvnias (for September–November 2026). The Ministry of Education and Science states that about 3 million children are covered.

The Amount per Meal per Student

The subvention is allocated to oblasts and others based on an amount per meal per student. The procedure under Resolution No. 1456 (as amended by Resolution No. 869) sets the following amounts.

According to the Ministry of Education and Science, primary school students in these 8 oblasts receive the national 35 hryvnias plus 15 hryvnias of WFP support. These amounts are used to calculate food costs; the actual price of a meal is set by the local government.

When Students Are Not Covered

• The subvention is for students at public schools established by local governments (комунальні) who attend in person, or through a combination of in-person and online learning
• The procedure under Resolution No. 305 provides that no cash is paid in place of a free meal for days when a student is learning online (remotely)
• Resolution No. 869 requires the Ministry of Education and Science and the oblasts to survey the state of meals for grades 5–11 and compile, by December 1, 2026, a proposal on whether continuing the subvention for these grades is warranted

School Meals by the Numbers (October 2025)

The text of the Strategy, as amended on November 7, 2025, presents the following picture of schools as of October 1, 2025, citing data from the state research body the Institute for Educational Analytics.

The same Strategy states, citing Ministry of Education and Science data, that as of October 2025, 17.1% of educational institutions had been damaged or destroyed by bombing and shelling under Russia’s full-scale invasion, with 1,820 general secondary schools damaged and 226 destroyed. The procedure under Resolution No. 305 allows meals to be prepared with shelf-stable food and similar items when students are in a shelter or a power outage prevents preparing a hot meal, and a 2026 amendment also permitted serving meals in assembly halls, classrooms and similar spaces during martial law.

The Strategy states that 7,992 school kitchens need renovation. In 2024, 1.5 billion hryvnias in subsidies from the state budget were allocated for renovations, and 51 projects were completed. For 2025, 960 million hryvnias were budgeted (per the Strategy).

Viewed from Japan

Ukraine’s school system itself (which grades correspond to “primary school,” and the shift to the 12-year system) is covered in our article on Ukraine’s 12-year school system, and regional differences in Ukrainian home cooking in our article on the Ukrainian table. For reading Ukrainian law numbers and phrases such as “as amended,” our article on reading Ukrainian legislation in the original is a useful reference.