What school dinner favourites do Brits miss the most?

When did you last reminisce about the smell of freshly baked school cake and custard? For many of us, the nostalgia hasn’t left our side, despite the years that have passed or slightly questionable foods that arrived on our plates. Researchers here at Alliance Online have decided to bring these memories back and uncover the most missed school dinner across the UK, revealing the dishes that are still close to our hearts. Using search data, we analysed the top 30 school dinner staples, from turkey twizzlers to Angel Delight, to see which ones Brits still fawn over and if this differs across the UK.

What are the most popular school dinner foods?

Trifle came out on top as the most memorable school dinner staple, with 33,100 Brits still searching every month. This is closely followed by rice pudding in second place and pineapple upside-down cake in third, both boasting 27,100 monthly searches across the UK. Despite being banned for almost 20 years, the renowned turkey twizzlers rank ninth for what Brits miss the most, with 12,100 Brits still searching for them.

What are the least popular school dinner foods?

Potato smiles were found to be the least popular school dinner food with just 1,000 monthly searches, despite them still being stocked in many supermarkets. The synonymous pink custard and mint custard were found to be rather unpopular amongst Brits too, yet 40% more Brits search for pink custard than they do for mint in a month.

Google Searches for School Dinner Food

Do Brits’ favourite school dinner foods vary across the UK?

Our study does in fact show that school dinner favourites vary in Brits from across the UK. For example, even though square pizza is the 10th most popular school dinner staple across the UK, it ranks as number one in Wales. Although trifle is the ultimate school dinner throwback in 13 out of the 30 cities analysed, six cities favoured square pizza and five cities favoured cornflake tart. Interestingly enough, 7/8 southern cities had trifle as their favourite whereas northern cities, such as Sheffield, Bradford, Sunderland and Middlesbrough, had cornflake tart as their favourite. Similarly, Manchester tart, consisting of shortcrust pastry, jam and custard and became popular in the 1980s, was found to be the favourite in Manchester and nearby Stoke-on-Trent, with 590 Mancunians continuing to search for the sweet treat every month. Despite chocolate concrete being 16th in the overall UK rankings, it has shown to be the favourite in Doncaster and Birmingham, with 1,000 Brummies searching every month.  

Commenting on the findings, Rachael Kiss from Alliance Online said:

“Our study shows just how much school dinners continue to cause up a stir across the UK and that they have such an imprint on our childhood. It has been eye-opening to see the regional differences of school dinner foods across the UK and how foods translate north-south and across each nation.”

Methodology

The top 30 school dinner staples were sourced from a range of external sources and news sites. Google Keyword Planner was then used to identify the average monthly searches of each food item across the UK, England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, as well as across the top 30 largest UK cities. This has then been ranked according to the highly-rated searches in the UK.