More than half of school meal caterers have warned that the quality of the food they provide is likely to deteriorate over the coming weeks and months amid staff shortages and rising costs.
Close to 100 catering organisations, including local authorities and private businesses, were surveyed by LACA, which represents school food providers, with over three-quarters (76 per cent) saying they have had to change their menu in recent months because of food shortages.
And more than a quarter of the providers (28 per cent), which serve more than 9,000 schools between them, said they are now using more processed foods to cope with rising costs.
LACA has said that not all of its members are still able to meet the school food standards, which are mandatory, and some have said that they are having to reduce portion sizes and offer less choice to cope.
And it has said that the sector is facing a recruitment challenge, with 74 per cent of members experiencing a lack of applicants, and that the situation has not improved since last academic year for the vast majority.
The organisation has warned that meeting minimum school food standards is “unlikely to be sustainable” in the long term without an increase in funding from the government.
It said that the 2.9 per cent increase in universal infant free school meals (UIFSM) funding announced in June was “insufficient” to deal with the challenge the industry is facing.
School meals industry ‘on its knees’
And it is calling on the government to urgently increase funding per meal for both UIFSM (currently £2.41) and free school meals (FSM, currently £2.47) to address the current cost-of-living crisis, and for this funding to increase annually with inflation.
Additionally, it is calling on the government to increase the FSM eligibility threshold to include all children whose parents are entitled to universal credit - a call that was also made by former education secretary Michael Gove last week.
LACA chair Brad Pearce described the school meals industry as being “on its knees”.
“The challenges facing our industry are set to get worse over the coming weeks and months. Without an increase in school meal funding, the most vulnerable children in our society will go without, possibly, their only hot, healthy, and nutritious meal of the day,” he said.
“A hungry child cannot learn, but for too many children this could soon become their reality.”
And Stephen Morales, chief executive of the Institute of School Business Leadership, said that if times were “tough”, providers would be forced down the route of looking at what was the best way of providing “viable” meals for children, which could well include more processed foods.
He said there was “real merit” in widening the criteria for free school meals, adding: “If we can make things easier and support the most vulnerable in society then we should be making every effort to do so.”
The cost of providing school meals has gone up rapidly in recent months, due to inflation and the war in Ukraine, as the country is a major provider of cooking oils.
Headteachers who run their catering in-house have told Tes they are setting aside tens of thousands of pounds in their budgets to shield some families from price rises.
Several school leaders have also called for the widening of free school meal criteria to include all those on universal credit.
But despite these pressures, the infant free school meal funding rate rose by just 7p this year.
A Department for Education spokesperson said: “We have expanded access to free school meals more than any other government in recent decades, which currently reach 1.9 million children. We are also supporting schools with £53.8 billion in core funding this year and a £4 billion increase in overall funding from 2021-22.
“The chancellor has unveiled a new growth plan, taking decisive action to get households and businesses through this winter and the next, by growing the economy to raise living standards for everyone.”
Kevin Courtney, joint general secretary of the NEU teaching union, said: “NEU figures show that government has cut the money spent on school meals by 25 per cent in real terms since 2010.
“Every child should have a healthy meal every day so they can concentrate in class and thrive. But as this research and our own figures show, school meal providers are having to do more with less. This is putting the health of our school children in jeopardy.”
Dr Paul Gosling, president of school leaders’ union NAHT and head teacher of a primary school in Devon, said: “The funding that schools receive for providing meals needs to be increased to cover their cost of production.
“In the school I run we have our own kitchens and employ our own kitchen staff. We provide meals for our pupils and for another school a couple of miles away which has no kitchen facilities.
“We are finding that food costs and staff costs have risen to the point that the money that we get for infants and the 45 per cent of children who have free school meals (£2.47) does not cover the cost of providing the meals. Add the cost of energy to this and the problem is worse.
Dr Gosling said the school makes a 23-30p loss per meal which amounts to £5,244 over the course of a year.
He added: “This money comes from the main school budget. The school is subsiding the provision of meals at the cost of other things like staff and the curriculum. I know that this is a problem for many schools. We could cut costs but we will not, we want to provide a nourishing and nutritious meal to all the children that need one.”
