Is this price increase unreasonable?

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DS1 has school dinners on a Wednesday and Friday. They currently cost £1.85.

Today he comes home with a letter saying that the price is increasing to £2.55, and from September if you have dinners you will have to have them all week (and pay for them) or not at all.

A new company has taken over the catering, so I think this is the reason, but are they being unreasonable on both counts, of price (I know food costs have gone up, but surely not that much) and choice?

I think this is really unreasonable. I would boycott.

DS's school changed catering companies last year. The price went up by about 40p (IIRC).

They were forced to change the catering company because the old one said that running school meals was uneconomic.

I'm guessing both the price rises and the forcing of paying for 5 days is because your company is also struggling.

Unfortunately they are a business so I guess they can do what they want. the alternative I guess would be that no hot meals are offered which would adversely affect those who get free school meals.

I'd want sample menus and a 1 week trial to see if the quality of the food has increased along with the price.

The price increase does sound quite high but then I think school dinners are shockingly expensive for what they are.

On the fence really about the 5 days or nothing. Can see how it would be logisticall easier but they could be shooting themselves in the foot as many may boycott altogether

I agree about the 5 days thing, especially as there is only one option each day - so you either like it or you dont IIYSWIM.

I think DS will be voting with his feet as he doesnt want to have them everyday.

This seems really unfair, it means in your case that you would go from paying £3.70 per week to £12.75 per week which is a massive increase! Also means that lots of children whose parents don't have much money will have to go without school dinners all together. Unfortunately I doubt there's very much you can do about it

We've worked out that if you put boiling water in a flask with some frankfurters, they are warm at lunch time so ds can have warm hot dogs. You have to teach them about how to use the flask safely though. This also means they can have soup aswell.

Send packed lunches.