Jamie's dinners now served at almost all Greenwich schools

Freshly-cooked meals developed by Jamie Oliver are now being served at nearly all of the 80 schools in Greenwich that use the council's in-house catering service.

More than 15,000 pupils are now eating the meals, which exclude packaged food except for tinned tomatoes and frozen peas.

Changes have not pushed ingredient cost beyond the proscribed 38-40p for primary schools and 48p for secondary schools, although the council has made £628,850 of additional funding available.

This includes £40,000 towards the cost of experienced chefs to work alongside school cooks to hep with the introduction of the new menus, and £28,000 towards the extra staff training required.

Chris Roberts, leader of Greenwich Council, said: "A strong feature of the meals service in Greenwich is that practically all of our schools use the council's in-house service. This allows us to put the nutritional health of our children before profit."

The new menus are being rolled out across the borough, and should be available to 28,000 of Greenwich's 36,000 pupils by July.

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