“From September 2026, a large-scale stage of school meal reform will begin in Ukraine: free hot lunches will be available to all students in grades 1-11 without exception. This initiative, announced by Prime Minister Yulia Svyridenko on December 29, 2025, aims to ensure equal access to quality food for more than 4.4 million children across the country. This is what Prime Minister Yulia said”, — write on: ua.news
From September 2026, a large-scale stage of school meal reform will begin in Ukraine: free hot lunches will be available to all students in grades 1-11 without exception. This initiative, announced by Prime Minister Yulia Svyridenko on December 29, 2025, aims to ensure equal access to quality food for more than 4.4 million children across the country.
Prime Minister Yuliya Svyridenko reported this in Telegram.
To launch this program, the Government has already directed the first part of the subvention to communities — about UAH 5.9 billion. In general, the State Budget for 2026 has allocated UAH 14.4 billion to cover food costs. In addition to directly paying for lunches, the state continues to invest in infrastructure: in 2026, UAH 1 billion has been allocated for the modernization of food blocks and the construction of new culinary hubs for training school cooks.
The program was rolled out gradually during 2025. Initially, free lunches became available to all primary school students (grades 1–4) and privileged categories. From September 2025, the pilot project covered students of grades 1-11 in frontline areas, which are a priority from the point of view of security. Next year, this experience will be scaled to every school — from Lviv to the liberated territories.
The reform, which is being implemented under the patronage of First Lady Olena Zelenska, involves not only free meals, but also a change in approaches to the menu. Instead of outdated standards, schools are implementing recipes developed with the participation of chefs, where the emphasis is on vegetables, fruits, cereals and meat, with the limitation of salt, sugar and the exclusion of semi-finished products. Thus, the school becomes a place for the formation of healthy eating habits in the younger generation.
We will remind you that the draft of the 2026 state budget provides for free meals for 4.4 million schoolchildren.
The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine canceled a 50 percent discount on children’s meals in kindergartens for families with many children. Now they will have to pay monthly by eachin a childin for 800 hryvnias more .
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