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.

It's the profiteering that's wrong here! The government should just give £15 or £20 voucher to the families directly to spend in the supermarket and cut out the not needed middle man!! Even Aldi do a budget range which could really make that money go far, much further than that amount of food.

And 'where is the money coming from'? Where did the £9 + billion come from that went to a failed track and trace service? Yes, the public purse.

@NoIDontWatchLoveIsland you might not be able it get it exactly right but it doesn’t justify it being this wrong.

Anyway it's all going to be looked into and one of the company's providing the free school meals have stated the photos that are circulating look,s nothing like the hampers the company should be providing and are investigating.

but they are meant to be supplying £30 worth of food.

No, they are not. They are supposed to be supplying the food component of 2 weeks worth of FSM lunch, which costs the school £30 to purchase because the catering company also incurs loads of other costs to supply that food as a cooked school lunch.

@NonagonInfinityOpensTheDoor

In our school the meals are costed as 60p a day. Possibly but no doubt you by food in HUGE catering quantities where price per meal will drop significantly.

I’m flabbergasted but not shocked they chose Chartwells. If anyone has had any dealings with them they will know they are a scum sucking rip off company that seem to have a monopoly on certain industries catering.
We used to get charged £10 for 2 “large” bowls of crisps (ready salted) for buffets in the university I used to work in. Apparently this was a company who had been through a fair tender process hahahaha. They should be fucking ashamed of this shite they’re giving out

Ha, yes Chartwells. I did deal with them when I was a school governor and the contract was coming up for renewal. The head was ready to just sign off and at an increased cost of 20p per meal. I said I’d run the process, I got two other companies in too and believe me Chartwells were absolutely stunned to discover that they were bow bidding tor the contract others, never happened before. In the end they got it but I not only got the price down 10p (so 30p less than they wanted) but also got improvements (I visited school at lunch time and sampled their offerings) I also got a lower priced packed lunch option included and built in ‘inspections’ by myself and one other governor every few months to ensure the quality was upheld. I imagine they only agreed to all this as they realised, for the first time ever (in our school and probably the local area) they were actually in danger of losing the contract. It’s not just Chartwells who are to blame, it’s also whoever in public services that wrote and signed off on the contract.

@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.

Exactly this.

You can't get it right!

Yes you can. You can give people weekly vouchers to choose what to provide for their kids for lunch. Have a set menu of items per week if necessary. Taking into account allergies and dietary requirements as catering companies would normally be expected to do.

It's not just school meals though. Lancaster University tried to get away with charging a whopping £18 per day for a daily food box for students forced to isolate re covid. It's not just businesses profiteering, but public sector organisations too.

The Conservatives aren't conservative at all. They hardly have any values or moral at all, let alone conservative ones. The only value they hold is contempt for the poor. They're puppets of the financial elite, no more no less. Johnson is the perfect leader for these "conservatives" - an amoral money grabber in a clown suit.

which costs the school £30 to purchase because the catering company also incurs loads of other costs to supply that food as a cooked school lunch.

The catering company isn't needed. If it's about money, cut out the middle man and the government provides vouchers. This is just propping up catering companies. Let's be honest.

Hands up all those surprised the Tory bastards are trousering another wedge of taxpayers cash!

THIRTY QUID??? Buying in bulk the company probably pays about £3-4 for that. Per pack assembling and distribution maybe another £3 per pack. Somebodys going home with £20+

@NoIDontWatchLoveIsland

As a taxpayer, do people realise what it would cost to give £15 cash per week to every FSM child?

There are 1.4 million children entitled to FSM.

If we have a 12 week lockdown, that's 250 million pounds.

Where do people think this money is coming from?

We're talking about boxes for 10 days (so 2 'school weeks), which would half your estimate to £125m.

As opposed to paying private companies to make up inadequate food boxes at a cost to the taxpayer of £30 per 2 weeks x 6 (based on 12 week lockdown) x 1.4m kids = £2,520,000

I know which I'd prefer.

It's the 3 frubes that stand out to me. A 6 pack of full size yoghurts is, what, 80p. It's a cheap, fairly kid friendly way to get calcium into them. But 13p a day is too much to spend. FFS. Frubes are fine for little ones and/or alongside some fruit but not as a whole pudding for a teenager.

People would be so angry if parents were given the money in vouchers and spent £2 of it of cigarettes but think it’s ok for a private company to take £20 of each £30 for ‘overheads’. Yes both are wrong but at least with the parents being given the voucher the kid will get more food.

@theformer I know a few people who did the same. It was just getting more for our money. Dont get me wrong I would of gone and spent it at tesco but wouldn't of got as much. At one point I could pick which shop I got the vouchers for. Dont understand why that stopped.

You can restrict the vouchers to non food items. Some people are always going to get around systems or abuse them. It's not a reason to give it all to fat cat outsourced companies.

£15 in Tesco would buy

Bag of Penne pasta
6 wholemeal rolls or a loaf of bread
2 jacket potatoes
Cheese
Ham
6 eggs
2 tins tuna
2 tins tomatoes
12 cartons of fruit juice
6 apples
6 bananas
Half a cucumber
3 carrots
Bag of cherry tomatoes
2 small tins of baked beans
6 cereal bars
5 mini malt loafs
12 fromage frais
6 packets of crisps

Vouchers are surely a much better use of resources.

Here in N.I we got £30 a month direct in bank account last lock down, to make up for a lack of free school meals, so about £7.50 per week, which imo is about right? Not sure if/when we'll get it this time though.

Those parcels and the company responsible are disgraceful!

£30 per 2 weeks x 6 (based on 12 week lockdown) x 1.4m kids = £2,520,000

Please do just check your maths there. Lol

Vouchers are surely a much better use of resources.

They are, as surely with more than one child it could be costed out so it's not the full amount for each one, and still feed all the children adequately and nutritionally with food they will enjoy.

The thing is, with some of the boxes you could make something reasonable — egg, tomato, potato and cheese could make a Spanish omelette that will do three days, especially served with bread. Even better if there's some pepper and onion.

If the children are having to manage making their lunches alone it also becomes harder. But even if the parents are there, if you'd never cooked one before, or weren't convinced you had enough electricity to cook it, that's a lot of your ingredients to put into a single recipe. It would be safer to do things that wouldn't go wrong.

Vouchers that most retailers could take, and cash in, would be much better.