School caterers in England are cutting food standards due to rising living costs and continuing supply chain pressures, according to new research, with the poorest families hit hardest.
In a survey commissioned by the Soil Association, a food health charity, 47 per cent of school meal providers said they were worried they would be unable to meet legally mandated food requirements if the economic situation did not improve.
About 13 per cent of caterers questioned last month by the Soil Association said they had already fallen short of food standards, prompting health experts to warn that lower nutrition levels could adversely impact pupil wellbeing.
“It has real implications for children,” said Rob Percival, head of policy at the Soil Association. “The school foods standards have been carefully calibrated to ensure that across the space of a week they provide a healthy balanced diet . . . for many [children a hot lunch] in the middle of the day is the only healthy meal they have.”
Zoe Griffiths, a nutritionist and founder of ZG Nutrition, said falling short of standards could mean children did not receive enough nutrients to grow and stay healthy, and raise the fat, sugar and salt content of catered meals.
“Many children rely on their school meal as their only meal of the day,” she said. “Children living in food insecurity could show signs of malnutrition. They will also experience social stigma and it can impact on mental health . . . concentration and behaviour in school.”
At Ben Jonson primary school in Tower Hamlets, meals for about 600 children are cooked on site as part of the inner London council’s catering operation, which prepares 16,500 meals every day for sites across the borough.
Lamb has recently been taken off the menu as it is too expensive, said the catering team — one of several workarounds they have had to introduce to meet demand as school budget tightens.
Other cost-saving measures, said caterers, include sneaking greens into burgers, by cutting their meat content from 80 per cent to 50 per cent, serving smaller portions and using more raw ingredients.
“Substitutions are happening all the time,” kitchen manager Pauline Gati said. “We [are] using less meat . . . but that doesn’t mean it’s cheaper [to prepare meals]. I’m always in trouble for the cost.”
Aoife Wycherley, head of supply chain and food procurement at Sodexo, a multinational catering management company, said the UK catering industry faced the “significant” twin challenges of inflation and disruption to supply chains due to the Covid-19 pandemic and war in Ukraine.
According to a new survey by Sodexo of more than 250 food buyers, 35 per cent said they would have to continue raising food prices to manage difficulties in their supply changes.
The companies said that labour shortages, disruptions to freight routes and an over-reliance on imports were all contributing to uncertainty among food suppliers. Some 80 per cent reported that their customers were considering using cheaper ingredients or smaller portions to cope with rising food costs.
Meanwhile, some schools have said they have been absorbing rising costs. Simon Kidwell, a primary school headteacher in Cheshire, north-west England, said the expense of serving breakfast and after-school clubs had risen 14 per cent in the past year. “We are holding off passing on the cost to parents who in many cases are just about managing,” he said.
The government recently committed additional funding for the provision of school meals but charities say it does not go far enough. Last month, ministers announced that funding for meals for 4- to 7-year-olds, who in England receive free school lunches, would increase from £2.34 to £2.41 a meal.
But the Soil Association called the increase “miserly” after inflation reached a 40-year high of 9.1 per cent in May.
As the cost of living crisis pushes more families into food poverty, some caterers are anxious that parents will be less able to afford school meals.
Anna Taylor, director of the Food Foundation, said the charity was worried about children whose families could not afford the £2.50 or so a day for a meal and were instead opting for nutritionally limited packed lunches.
Children qualify for free school meals if their family income is below £7,400 a year after tax and before benefits are taken into account. The Child Poverty Action Group, a charity, estimated that one-third of children living in poverty in England — about 800,000 — are not currently eligible for free meals.
Naomi Duncan, chief executive of Chefs in Schools, a company that provides bespoke menus for schools, said pupils would benefit from having cooks who could adapt creatively to the changing economic situation.
She said their kitchens needed about 70-75 per cent take-up to break even. “A half-empty restaurant doesn’t pay the bills.”
The government said that schools were “responsible for providing nutritious school meals” by contracting caterers from their core funding, which had increased £4bn in cash terms compared with last year.
It added that schools had flexibility in how to meet food standards. “If a particular product is not readily available for any reason, the standards give . . . caterers the freedom to substitute in similar foods.”
Source: Economy - ft.com
