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 school is responsible for managing this.
They are responsible for the food in the parcels and checking the value and getting the best deal they can.

It is not a political decision to cut funding or leave people short.
Ask your school about the contents of the package, who has checked and signed off on the deal. Ask if the Governors have questioned the provision. Do they know there are issues? Parents need to politely complain if the provision of FSMs is poor

[quote Iwantacookie]@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. [/quote]
I did it because I don't have an Asda near me, but I do shop online with Morrisons (bought a delivery pass when money was better so don't pay a delivery fee every time) it was just more practical that way.
We also got the vouchers where you can choose where to spend them, but they couldn't be used online so I 'sold' those to my Mum as well.
It didn't cost "the taxpayer" any more than if I had kept the vouchers. Other than they probably wouldn't have been used at all had I kept them myself.

@MrsMomoa

Aroundtheworldin80moves

Back in the real world, for a school packed lunch on a trip in Reception year, my child was provided with

• a ham& cheese sandwich
• a bag of crisps
• piece of fruit
• chocolate biscuit (kit kat type thing)
• bottle of water

This was apparently the amount of food a 4-18yo needed for lunch according to the kitchen manager.

I'm a grown adult and even I don't eat that much food for lunch!

Are you fucking kidding me?!

Are you seriously saying that this is too much food for a growing child?!!

I’m disgusted by the replies on here. I really am

Eg £30 x6 = £180

£180 × 1,400,000 kids = 252,000,000

250 million.

All that money is already going to the private companies with this model so I don't know what your point is.

If you've ever seen an infant school dinner, you will realise that £2.50 per day gets a tiny amount of food - anyone with half a good housekeeping brain could get five dinners for the same cost - but, like other posters have said, there is admin, transport, wages etc as well. I've never understood why primary schools charge the same amount for all years from Reception to Year 6, when the amount that the children eat increases MASSIVELY as they go through school.

Are you seriously saying that this is too much food for a growing child?!!

My kid never has the chocolate or crisps in that list and hes 75th % weight and 90th height.

We have an obesity crisis because too many kids do indeed eat too much.

Loads of people saying the additional costs of staff wages and storage disruption all come into in no no they should not come out of the £30 an if that is the case just give the parents vouchers again atleast that way the children get to eat what they like. That pic is awful looks like the company raided the discount bucket for it all.

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

Unfortunately vast swathes of the British populace are conditioned by the press to direct their anger downwards despite the poor being relatively poorer than ever and the rich getting richer than ever, even during the austerity years. They're happy to get poorer in real terms and see public services starved of funds/closed outright as long as they see the government kick some other group even harder.

I cannot believe anyone on here or on twitter is possibly putting themselves on the side of defending this

^^ agree.

It is a food thread on MN though and people see it as an opportunity to show how frugal and imaginative they are. To overuse the word protein and to insinuate that the poor people should just be bloody grateful. It honestly sickens me. Let them tomato sandwiches eh.

The daft thing is, all it would take is a box of eggs and a cucumber or head of broccoli (or both, dammit!) for it to be a much more appropriate offering and there would still be a nice fat profit margin for the tory chums to enjoy.

12:46Ereshkigalangcleg

That money pays for cooking staff, equipment, fuel to cook, office staff, logistics.

Or we could fire all those (probably low paid) people and give FSM kids cash vouchers instead.

Yes theres a profit element and the government could challenge that. But hey lets just let all the private companies make no money, I mean no one on here wants their pension fund to be worth anything do they?

Does a loaf of bread not go mouldy after a week?

Oh god, the MN competitive under eating has started.

We had the same thing with our 2 major supermarkets offering a box of essentials when lockdown first announced-only delivered to the vulnerable and needy in society..at a $50 cost. Had to tick a bunch of disclaimer stuff before you could order..It was flooded with complaints over the sheer inflation of the inferior &insubstantial products-(the true pricing estimated at 30% less) and everyone demanding refunds. They had to withdraw it.
A crisis is always a good time to profit-shameful.

That money pays for cooking staff, equipment, fuel to cook, office staff, logistics.

So? This is about parents feeding children at home, the companies are not delivering their normal service by preparing meals. Lots of private companies would probably like to be propped up more at the taxpayers' expense, wouldn't they?

I grew up in a rough as hell area, with people who absolutely would flog vouchers. But, big but, those same folk would have neither the ability nor the inclination to make carrot water soup or jacket potatoes either. So this doesn't help the children who would lose out through vouchers, but it hurts the rest who are lefy with a ridiculous and inadequate food parcel.

And 2 carrots with no other veg is not sufficient to make 2 portions of soup. Apart from being minging, it's also probably under 50 calories. Even if you still have edible bread, 2 slices with it is probably under 200 for the main part of the meal. Maybe the 1/3 of a frube will save it.

Nobody is asking for caviar, but a weekly parcel (for freshness) with sufficient to make either a sandwich with protein or similar each day, fruit, crisps, biscuit or similar. The catering companies could easily make things like pasta salads and portion them. This isn't good enough

Anyone saying it’s too much food quite clearly doesn’t have teenage sons

[quote mrsm43s]**@everybodysang* it doesn't matter that it's ADEQUATE, it matters what has been paid to the company to provide it and what they're fobbing people off with.*

Are schools paying the companies £30?

Just because the vouchers were previously £15 a week, does that mean that definitely what the schools/government are paying their suppliers?

I don't think that box is enough for 10 days. But I'm finding it odd that people think they are entitled to £15 per week per child. They are actually entitled to food to make 1 meal per week per child, which probably costs £5 or so per week.

If someone is charging the school/government £30 for that box, then its daylight robbery, absolutely. But a box of food to cover 10 child size lunches shouldn't cost anything close to £30.[/quote]
A primary school meal is costed at between 80p - £1 per day, the rest of the money is for staff, equipment and utilities.

There are millions of families in fuel poverty who will struggle to cook the bl**dy pasta and potatoes.
Someone is spending taxpayers money on this and making a huge profit from desperate families. Disgusting and indefensible!!

Yes theres a profit element and the government could challenge that. But hey lets just let all the private companies make no money, I mean no one on here wants their pension fund to be worth anything do they?

They're not fulfilling their contracted services in normal times by providing shitty meal boxes to poor kids which require other ingredients and expensive energy to use and then creaming off a profit.

Obvious answer is to go back to vouchers. For £30 in aldi I could get loads of fruit and veg, bread, milk etc. It's just a way for businesses to skim off the top from the mouths of some of the most vulnerable children in society.

If the admin and distribution costs so much, cut out the middle man and give it directly to families. Vouchers aren't perfect but the tiny minority of parents who chose to sell or trade the vouchers for non food items doesn't mean the rest of the children deserve to go hungry.

There is only limited budgets and our grandchildren are going to paying for this for rest of their lives.

As a 50 year old higher rate taxpayer I'm paying for it now and I want my taxes to go towards feeding these children a decent meal.

@Nohomemadecandles tbf I did open the thread quite excited about seeing some baffling claims from people that neither they or their children could EVER eat a whole sandwich, not ever and if they even attempted it then they would be ‘stuffed’ for days afterwards. Those posters are always a joy.

Well I don't know about anybody else, but I've scribbled down the carrot & water soup recipe and we'll be having that for dinner tonight with the leftovers for lunch on Weds and Thurs