A loaf and a block of cheese is not lunch for ten days

[ZazieSheHer]

So some of the free school lunch boxes contain very little food.

Marcus Rashford condemns free school meal packages

“...a package, supposedly containing £30 worth of food to last for 10 days, comprising just a loaf of bread, some cheese, a tin of beans, two carrots, two bananas, three apples, two potatoes, a bag of pasta, three Frubes, two Soreen bars and a tomato”.

mobile.twitter.com/RoadsideMum/status/1348646428084760576

Can’t imagine what it’s like home schooling hungry kids. Would like to say I’m shocked but I’m not.

The same amount of food is being given for teenagers as for small children which is ridiculous

@peboh

You can feed a child on that for 10 days. It's basic, but it can be done. However the issue is the £30 a week. I will argue that £30 is a lot to feed a child one meal for a week, and that's the mistake the government have made. The guys providing the hamper are now swimming in profit (which obviously they have to make profit it's their job) but the government shouldn't have said such a high amount to then only give a 6th of that.

One meal a day for 5 days that should have said 🤦🏻‍♀️

@SFHJ

Unpopular opinion. Sorry but it’s for school lunches why should it be £30 a week, it’s not for a whole weeks shop, maybe it’s changed to the parcel which does contain the lunches for the relevant amount of days as it’s more cost effective for the schools providing it. There is only limited budgets and our grandchildren are going to paying for this for rest of their lives. Why can’t people be grateful for the help they do get. People are always wanting more.

I think you are missing the point that it IS £30 a week, for that £5 worth of food. It's not the amount of food that's being critisised, its the fact that amount of food is costing us tax payers £30.

Really, I think they'd be better cooking hot meals in the school kitchens and running a delivery service. If some is being cooked for children in school anyway the cooks are in. You would need some money for containers and transport, and it wouldn't exactly be eco-friendly, but at least children would be getting a good hot lunch.

It difficult though — would people complain that having lunches delivered would make it obvious who has FSM?

Those parcels do look very poor. I can understand why some things have been split up (catering-sized packs/tins are far bigger) but they should have been parcelled more appropriately than those flimsy bags.

aaaaaaarrrgggh this is not a MN chicken thread, nobody cares that you can make that last a week and your child would love a fucking tomato sandwich and you could make a nutritious gruel meal out of it all IT'S ABOUT GOVERNMENT CONTRACT CORRUPTION.

You grubby fuckwits.

£30 is way too much. Shouldn't be given as vouchers as individuals will profit.

Individuals are profiting though, the folk that run these companies are profiting from this contract and providing minimal food and not in a way that makes coherent meals. What the hell do you do with dry bread, a carrot and a slice of cheese. I’d rather the poorest in society profit and can feed themselves than corporations profit by feeding poor people food they wouldn’t eat themselves.

I wonder if you took that into school how much would be allowed.

"The company is Chartwells, a division of Compass whose chairman is a Tory donor apparently"

Does anyone need to know more than this? Morrisons produce food boxes, they could have done massively better than this if the government wanted to go to a single company without tender. This is just corrupt.

This is just awful. Who gets a packet of 9 frubes and decides a child only gets 3 per fortnight? How is that bread going to be kept fresh, given that there are a significant number of families without a freezer and experiencing energy poverty?

Just give the families a £30 supermarket voucher that they can spend like human beings. It's disgusting that someone is profiting from this sorry box.

Why can’t people be grateful for the help they do get. People are always wanting more.

I know, those ungrateful peasants wanting to have some choice over their food.

I'll point out as well I did sell my tesco vouchers to my parents for face value. I then went to lidl where I got much more for my money.
Yes the vouchers are a better idea but just giving them out for any supermarket instead of choice is pointless. Yes there will be a few that sell them to buy alcohol but considering how many wont why are a few being punished?

@everybodysang

aaaaaaarrrgggh this is not a MN chicken thread, nobody cares that you can make that last a week and your child would love a fucking tomato sandwich and you could make a nutritious gruel meal out of it all IT'S ABOUT GOVERNMENT CONTRACT CORRUPTION.

You grubby fuckwits.

Amen

@everybodysang
The last time I looked mumsnet was a discussion forum and people are perfectly entitled to take the discussion in whatever direction flows.

I live in Mexico and the level of blatant corruption in the UK reminds me so much of how Mexico was until a couple of years ago. Fortunately a lot of those people are either in prison or on their way to prison now.

"£30 would buy a lot of food in Aldi or Lidl"
I can feed myself, 11yo ds and a cat for £40 a week from aldi.
No way is that £30 of food and most of it wouldn't last to the 2nd week.
The tuna in a money bag is just disgusting, would be cheaper to put in the whole tin than to pay someone to portion it, chop and wrap half a pepper.

@Iwantacookie

I'll point out as well I did sell my tesco vouchers to my parents for face value. I then went to lidl where I got much more for my money. Yes the vouchers are a better idea but just giving them out for any supermarket instead of choice is pointless. Yes there will be a few that sell them to buy alcohol but considering how many wont why are a few being punished?

Me too. Well Asda vouchers and I spent the money in Morrisons instead. I got told I was a terrible person and that it was fraud and the police should be informed I was going to hand myself in but decided to go to sleep instead

everybodysang

Post of the thread!

This has made me so so anxious for those poor families relying on that support. It's such a long time to be closed and over winter too. Just can't stop imagining poor kids, stuck in doors, maybe cold and with way not enough to eat :(

I hope something will be done about this. How can we go on living in a society where resources meant for the most vulnerable are consistently filtered through profit making machines for the already incredibly wealthy?

There are so many resolvable issues with those parcels. The sight of those little treats thrown in is so upsetting to me for some reason :( I am not wealthy by any means but I am so, so grateful I can feed my children. I hope this situation improves quickly and dramatically.

It's not intended to be £30 of food. I dont understand why people think that.

The cost to a parent of a school lunch is about £3.

Only a small proportion of that pays for the actual food.
Most of the cost is staff to cook it, fuel, refrigeration costs, office overheads including menu planning, nutrition, staff payroll and admin. Theres also the cost of equipment, health and safety etc, plus catering company profit.

The government has basically said the catering companies should continue to provide the food to FSM kids. It would be about a fivers worth a week and as with the lunches offered at school, isnt generous portions or individualised menus or masses of choice for picky eaters.

Its carefully planned to be adequate nutrition for a child.

It does look like a minority of companies are getting it wrong and providing a bit less than is needed but I would imagine there are always teething issues in the first week.

Lots of schools/companies are providing enough food.

I know, those ungrateful peasants wanting to have some choice over their food

I know I mean they r only poor people who cares if they get ripped off.

Its only middle and upper class who can complain that they paid 100 quid extra for real.leather in the 4x4 furnishings and didn't get it. Everyone else should be grateful for a box full of useless food that's 25 quid short and there's not even any butter fir the bread.

@Porcupineintherough - it's been costed against supermarket prices. So that's not what it costs to produce.

Its not intended to be £30 of food

No, but it is intended to be enough food to feed a child a healthy lunch for 10 days. And a service worth £30 per child per 2 weeks. I can see no evidence of either.

@DecemberSun - see above. It's been costed against the price in a supermarket. Ridiculous racket. Cronyism & corruption at its finest.

Oh and plenty of schools dont provide hot meals in normal circumstances either. Schools with no kitchens like the one near me, this is what they provide in non Covid times - sandwiches with fillings like ham or cheese, yoghurt, salad, fruit. That's in an affluent area and the parents seem to think its adequate for a child.

The government has basically said the catering companies should continue to provide the food to FSM kids.

But they aren't doing this are they? Otherwise they would be delivering hot meals. This is an inadequate parcel of things you could supposedly use to make lunches. The vouchers are better.