Government attacked over healthy eating

The Government has come under fire for "inflicting" healthy eating on school caterers without providing extra funding.

Roger Denton, head of catering for the London Borough of Sutton, speaking at the Food Service in the Public Sector conference in London today, said: "Healthy eating is just a media hype, which the Government has latched onto and inflicted on us whether the customers want it or not.

"The media tells us to eat less and eat healthier, whatever that may be. It's certainly a turn-off for most people, especially children," he added.

Denton said the Government had pushed the nation into retail therapy and created the most label-obsessed generation of children ever. Now it wanted them to eat healthily, he said.

Compulsory competitive tendering, introduced in 1983, had pushed down prices and removed the issue of quality, added Denton. The Government now wanted to improve quality without providing extra funding.

"No-one can doubt that there is a cost to larger portions and higher nutritional value," he said.

Denton compared public sector caterers to Oliver Twist asking for more investment from a Government that had underfed it for the last ten years.

By Ben Walker

For more on the Food Service in the Public Sector conference, see next week's Caterer & Hotelkeeper magazine.