For the second year running, Wales leads the way amongst UK nations when it comes to providing primary school age children (aged five to 10) with milk.
The findings come as part of World School Milk Day 2022 which celebrates the benefits of healthy and nutritious school milk, and this year falls on Wednesday, September 28.
The School and Nursery Milk Alliance (SNMA) analysed the latest available data from DHSC (Department of Health and Social Care) and the RPA (Rural Payments Agency) and found that as an average per population, Wales provided 38 portions of milk per primary school-age child per year.
In comparison, England provided 13 portions of milk per primary school-age child per year.
Wales also leads the way on providing free milk to nursery-age children, with an average of 58 portions of milk provided per child in education settings or nurseries per year, narrowly ahead of England with an average of 56 portions.
New research shows that the overall uptake of free and subsidised is significantly lower than before the pandemic.
This reflects the impact of the pandemic with many schools and nurseries temporarily opting out of the scheme during the worst of the lockdowns.
School food standards require lower fat milk or lactose reduced milk to be available to drink at least once a day during school hours.
