The spring 2026 Turku survey on preferred foods received a total of 4,604 responses from different age groups. Most of the responses were from students in primary and lower secondary education, but students from upper secondary schools and vocational schools, customer families of early childhood education, and school staff were also included. The survey provides valuable information about what foods are liked the most and how well the current menus are working.

School meals are designed to comply with nutritional recommendations and to support the well-being of children and adolescents during the school day. Equally important, besides being healthy, is that the food is also tasty and enjoyable. Surveys on preferred foods help to ensure that menus meet the expectations and taste preferences of their users.

Tortillas and creamy vegetable soup are the respondents’ perennial favourites

Based on the results, familiar and approachable dishes are still popular. In the mixed food segment, tortillas were clearly the most preferred food in several respondent groups. Chicken nuggets, oven-baked sausage, fish fingers and meatballs also got lots of votes.

With regard to vegetarian dishes, creamy vegetable soup stood out as a clear favourite in all respondent groups. It received many times more votes than other vegetarian options. Spinach pancakes, pea soup and baked pancake also emerged as popular vegetarian dishes.

Although certain dishes were clearly preferred over others, there was also a great deal of dispersion in the responses. Many dishes got votes with different spellings, and individual respondents often listed several favourites in the same response. This shows that pupils and students have diverse ideas about what school food could be.

When evaluating core menus, traditional and familiar flavours stand strong

This time, it was also possible to evaluate the foods on the core menu in connection with the preferred foods survey. Respondents were asked to comment on whether they would keep a dish on the menu or wish it would be replaced next school year.

Mixed and vegetarian menus were evaluated separately. The mixed menu was evaluated by 4,516 people and the vegetarian menu by 3,858 people.

More than half of the respondents would like to keep the dishes on the current mixed menu on the list in the future. Of the individual dishes, traditional school dishes, such as meatballs and mashed potatoes, oven-baked sausage, and mashed potatoes and fish fingers, were among the favourites to be retained. Creamy vegetable soup and spinach pancakes were also among the most popular dishes evaluated in the mixed menu.

When it comes to foods that were most often listed as options to be replaced, opinions were more scattered, and no single dish stood out as clearly worse than others. The results show that familiarity and tradition are important factors when considering students’ preferences for mixed foods.

The opinions on the vegetarian menu were fairly evenly distributed. Some would like to keep the vegetarian dishes as they are, others would like to change things up, while a large third group did not take a stand on the matter.

Traditional and familiar vegetable dishes, such as creamy vegetable soup, spinach pancakes, and pea soup and pancake, were among the favourite dishes to be retained. Many more respondents wanted to retain these foods on the menu than replace them.

On the other hand, foods based on newer plant-based proteins, such as mifu and tofu dishes, were more polarizing and were among the dishes most often listed as the ones to be replaced. For the vegetarian menu, there were a lot of “don’t know” responses, suggesting that not all respondents may eat vegetarian food regularly.

The top preferred foods will be served during Ascension Day week

The preferred foods for spring 2026 will be served in schools and early childhood education during Ascension Day week (week 20). On Tuesday, schools will serve tortillas, whereas oven-baked sausage and potato casserole will be served in early childhood education. On Wednesday, creamy vegetable soup and apple pie will be served to everyone. This takes into account both mixed food and vegetarian food preferences from different respondent groups as part of normal school meals.