Funding for school meals under fire

Local authorities are spending only half the amount of money required to give schoolchildren healthy meals, according to new research presented at the Soil Association's annual conference at the Royal Agriculture College, Cirencester, Gloucestershire, last week.

Parents pay around £1.40 a day for their children's school lunches, but most local authorities spend only 35p on the food itself, Lizzie Vann, founder of organic food producer Organix, told 500 farmers.

Vann said compulsive competitive tendering had resulted in contracts being awarded at the lowest possible cost and healthy food was the lowest priority. Poor ingredients meant children were not getting the Government's minimum recommended quantities of vitamins and minerals.

Food was bought from limited and expensive lists of wholesalers, Vann said. The Soil Association is campaigning for school meal contracts to be broken down into smaller contracts to allow local and organic farmers to get on supplier lists.

A spokeswoman for the Local Authority Caterers Association said the cost of school meals also covered wages and overheads. Local authorities met the cost of free meals and there were no Government subsidies.

A LACA survey had shown most parents did not want to pay more. The issue differed across the country and many schools in rural areas used local farmers' produce, she added.

Source: Caterer & Hotelkeeper magazine, 9-15 January 2003