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.

Disgraceful. That is not 10 days worth of food. Fuck me. This is utterly not surprising for this shit show of a government. The cost of the person opening and counting out the Frubes is probably 10x the cost of the Frubes itself. Why not just give vouchers to families.

Poor kids. It's time for us all to chip in and support local community efforts like food banks as this government is so ridiculously useless.

I am sorry, but no-one is so poor in the UK that they can't afford to feed their kids.
I am sorry, but you can do one.

Enlighten us then as to why vouchers that cannot be used in cigarettes or alcohol are wanted then. Go on.

Would you buy that box if manky bananas and bread off anyone?

@GavsCloakOfInvisibility

That's 5 rounds of sandwiches, one snack and one piece of fruit, with pasta and potatoes to spare.

Sounds like what I'd give my kids for lunch.

But it’s not worth £30 even allowing for the cost and some profit for the company.

Ps. The cost covers admin and packing costs.
Packing would be a whole lot cheaper if they weren’t cutting tomatoes in half, opening tins of tuna and decanting them into money bags, quartering onions, and generally introducing hygiene issues to the whole shameful business.

No one wants gold fucking chicken nuggets, whatever they are. They want children to be fed so they can learn and be happy, it’s not a wild concept, it’s not radical Marxism

@ClaireP20

Lunch for my 3 kids - bread, block of cheese, crisps, bananas, juice, baked beans. Maybe soup.

What do you lot of ponces want - gold fucking chicken nuggets. Jesus, i live in a council flat in east london, so not exactly rich. But i make it work.

People are just complaining because they want the vouchers rather than the food...and we all know why...

Ps. The cost covers admin and packing costs.

It's not poncey to say that parcel is shit value and not enough for 10 lunches.

It’s not £30 of food even at high cost supermarkets and even less so if you consider that the likelihood is they buy food in bulk wholesale which makes it even cheaper tan supermarket prices.

@Porcupineintherough

For £30 that doesnt seem a great deal. But is it meant to be £30 of food or are the on-costs (admin, purchase, storage, distribution) supposed to come out of it also?

Thing is - if government is paying a company £30, and they are having to make their costs out of that then inevitably the families who need the help will be missing out. Which demonstrates why it is wrong to do this rather than issuing supermarket vouchers where the child actually gets £30 worth of food. It's so stupid and illogical, but I assume that the people who run the companies doing this have lobbied their mates for the lovely contracts.

I'd rather the vouchers be used on fags and alcohol (not that I think they are used that way) rather than line the pockets of wealthy Tory donors any day of the week.

@zaphodbeeble

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

What a surprise 🙄

I haven't read the thread yet, but how utterly depressing that 27% of people who voted think OP is unreasonable, because I can only assume that those 27% also think it's ok to feed the poorest and most vulnerable children in the UK absolute shit, and for the Tory donor in charge of the company supplying this shit to make a large profit out of it.

I don't think there is an evil conspiracy by the government to starve children in poor families because they hate them. I can't believe adult people are actually writing things like this in all seriousness.
I do think it is quite an appaling mismanagement by the company who is providing these boxes. Seems to be an isolated example by a relatively small company. It was rightfully highlighted as a scandal and, hopefully, will be rectified.

Having said that, I did see charities with extremely left leaning management who provided a much, much worse cost/benefit ratio for their vulnerable service users. It totally wasn't done out of malice, just from the lack of professionalism and poor organisational skills.

If I gave my son that it would go:

lunch 1. Cheese sandwhich, a banana, another cheese sandwhich because he was hungry, a soreen bar, possibly an apple if still hungry
lunch 2. cheese and apple sandwich. half an apple. a yoghurt tube. the banana if he was still hungry
lunch 3. Baked beans on jacket potatoe. a soreen bar. probably a yoghurt tube. Carrot sticks because he was still hungry
lunch. Baked beans on jacket potatoe. A yoghurt tube. Carrot sticks because he was still hungry. Child contains hes still hungry but tough
Lunch 4. pasta with seconf carrot sticks grated in. Child complains hes still hungry but tough
Lunch 5. Plain pasta with a chopped up tomatoe. Child complains hes still hungry but tough
lunch 6 ?
lunches 7, 8, 9, 10 ????

And before anyone asks, my son is a very healthy weight and always eats a good breakfast/dinner, he is however an active child. I suppose if I was in that situaiton I could ask him not to move around as much so he got less hungry which would make the food go further. But fortunately I dont need to do this. No parent should have to.

@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.

Why should people be grateful for getting 1/3 of the amount that the government is spending on fsm, and a big company making money out of it? It would be infinitely better and less fucking patronising, to provide the actual amount that the government want to spend, as supermarket vouchers, direct to parents. There is no need for a middleman taking a profit. Why should people not talk about this?

[quote SendHelp30]@Toasty280 exactly

@LegoPirateMonkey no I’m saying it shouldn’t be a bloody thing at all. The idea that you would have a child or more than one child and then expect tax payers and the government to feed, clothe, heat & house them is just absolutely beyond me. If you cannot support a child then don’t have them. If your circumstances change then you make every effort to do something about it. A lady I work with has 3 jobs to support her kids so that she can provide everything they need. Where is the pride? The work ethic? The ambition?[/quote]
What about the parents that have been widowed unexpectedly, lost their job during this pandemic with little or no hope of getting another one and have to wait for more than 6 weeks for benefits? The victim of domestic violence that escalated during lock down. People that are now too ill to work?

Must be lovely in your perfect world. I hope you never need help

Nowhere near enough for 2 weeks. I’d thought it was for week. Also should be for each child?
Personally don’t think it’s enough. So far today ds has ate... bowl of porridge oats, snack pack of grapes, banana, bowl or spaghetti Bolognese, chocolate bar and had a yoghurt.
He will be downstairs again after his next lesson and can already predict he will be ‘starving’
If they won’t
Provide food vouchers they should be at least providing ingredients to make substantial meal for a child. For some children the only hot meal they get is when they are at school.

@emptydreamer I dont think it is the governements evil plan to starve children. I think they are completely apathetic which is worse. I do think that it is significant that the chairperson of the company is a tory donor. The children are just collaterol.

"What do you lot of ponces want"

For a start, good value for tax payers money for a start. I know prices in London are crazy, but I reckon most mumsnetters could do better than that, for £30 a month. It's not bloody rocket science.

@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.

You miss the point which is that the company is being paid £30 for what is little more than £5 worth of food. If nothing else, instead of complaining about lack of gratitude, perhaps consider that your taxes are lining the pockets of the fatcats.

*I didn't mean to write to start twice. Multitasking never ends well for me.

Another thing to consider for Primary schools is that they would have ordered food for the whole school at least for the first week as they kept being told schools were safe and were going to stay open come what may. Now they will have some food hanging around that they won't be able to use as have fewer pupils in school so maybe some of them are using that food up first in hampers.

For those saying overheads. It's Chartwells these are the same overheads they have anyway.
Same suppliers same equipment same staff etc.
It's the same dc they are feeding it's just some are at home so having to drop off packages once a week with the school when they drop that days dinners for the critical workers dc.

@ClaireP20

Lunch for my 3 kids - bread, block of cheese, crisps, bananas, juice, baked beans. Maybe soup.

What do you lot of ponces want - gold fucking chicken nuggets. Jesus, i live in a council flat in east london, so not exactly rich. But i make it work.

People are just complaining because they want the vouchers rather than the food...and we all know why...

Ps. The cost covers admin and packing costs.

ODFOD. And while you do maybe you could look up the meaning of ponce.

@5zeds

What are you on ! Please do is a menu for 10 days for 1 school child !

Main
Two cheese on toast
One tomato sandwich
Two carrot soup and bread
Two baked potato and beans
Three pasta and cheese sauce

Pudding
two bananas,
three apples,
three Frubes,
two Soreen bars

10 mains/10 puddings

As I said it’s light on protein and definitely NOT £30

Carrot soup? - made presumably with one carrot and some water? Cheese sauce? - made with the remaining few slices of processed cheese which didn't go on the cheese on toast? Get real.