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 absolutely appalling.
We used to use this company for school dinners and they were so tight that if a child accidentally dropped their measly portion of dinner (1 sausage/ 2 fishfingers for a 10 year old) there was literally no spare food to give them.

@Katyppp

It's a lot easier to fling insults at posters you don't agree with than try to engage. Lots of hyperbole, lots of whataboutery but no answers to WHY people cannot budget in order to feed their children.

Because they DO budget. That tight budget includes their children being fed at school 5 days a week. Are you really this obtuse ?

At some school in rural Devon they received a bag of flour instead of bread...
Actually this one, I think, delivers close to £15 claimed gross value before reasonable overheads. Yes, someone will have to cook pancakes with the flour and eggs. Not sure about what are those weird plastic pots with "tomato soup" and "vegetable soup".

Its certainly a benchmark for society that people are arguing the food is adequate and the distributors are entitled to a large cut of the £30, and all sorts of other crap including why cant parents budget on and so on. Another "race to the bottom" thread.

We are better than this. As a country we usually are and can be better than this.

I'm so glad this company has been named and shamed. So shocking that they thought (or wanted) to get away with this.

Not sure about what are those weird plastic pots with "tomato soup" and "vegetable soup".

Powdered soup, like in cup a soup

And £15 for that?

Jesus. This thread is depressing. Sometimes, reading threads like this, I feel we are on the cusp of something really nasty. That 25% think its ok for hungry children to be literally short changed. That they are more ok with billionaires making money off their taxes then feeding vulnerable children.

And the excuses... That is enough food for five lunches (?!?). Why should it be the states obligation to feed the hungry (???!!!!). That there are admin costs involved (the administration is 5x more expensive than the product!!!??? Then the billionaire is doing it wrong).

It is a moral scandal. And the 25% may have 'personal responsibility' whatever that means, but they lack integrity.

There was no tuna or cheese or even pasta in my Dc case. So.... you might want to have a word with yourself trying to justify starving children.

No it's parents not feeding their own kids that are starving them not me saying that we should look economically. They don't need biscuits, squash and crisps in their parcel handouts. They need staple foods.

A box of veg and stock cubes is ideal to make up soups. Couple of loaves of wholemeal bread to go with it. The kids can learn about veg and making foods as part of home schooling and are getting nutritious lunches. All for little cost and it's a warm meal.

You’re presuming the electricity or gas hasn’t been cut off there @Crumbleandcake,

It would be great if people could stop using this thread as an exercise to "meal plan" and show us a) how frugal they are and b) how little they/their "beanpole" children eat.

Arguably if you are providing food then at least this gets round issues like people being unable to get to a supermarket to use the vouchers/spend them online and therefore having no food.

They are clearly having to get other shopping somewhere. The same problems you mention still apply, the fuel costs etc. There is no one size fits all solution. I think vouchers are a much better solution offering vfm and likely to suit many more people.

A box of veg and stock cubes is ideal to make up soups. Couple of loaves of wholemeal bread to go with it. The kids can learn about veg and making foods as part of home schooling and are getting nutritious lunches. All for little cost and it's a warm meal

How do you blend the soup if you don't have a blender? Absolutely loads of kids really struggle with lumps in food. How do you cook it long enough to get soft veg if you are already into the emergency fiver on the gas meter? What will the kids "learn about veg"?

@DuncinToffee
Ah, I see.
Well it adds up to ~£10 in retail prices, given small packaging, and ~30% is more or less reasonable overheads, a little bit on the high side.
For a primary child, I could make 5 very boring lunches out of that (not according to the guidance mentioned above, I'd use my own water, oil and salt).
Inadequate for a secondary age child, of course.

I think @CamdenLurker's question is critical. If a school or local authority has (pre-pandemic) contracted a catering company to maintain canteen facilities, employ cooks and provide food at a rate of £30 per child and they are still doing this for the children currently in the school and then providing (and delivering?) these food parcels on top of that then I suspect they would argue that the amount of food expense should be similar to their usual food costs. As many people have said, these are a very small amount.

The quote I've seen from Chartwell's on
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-55628428
is a bit ambiguous, because they talk about a budget "based on the cost of a free school meal allowance" - from their perspective, this might mean 60p per day.
(The list of food that they say are in their boxes seems much longer than the list on here btw - I don't know if this box was from some other company).

So basically, if the government / school has already sunk costs into contracting the company at a particular amount, and they are providing these boxes as part of their ongoing contract whilst also providing lunches to students in schools (albeit at reduced numbers, but probably with the same overheads) then although I think this is not ideal, it is understandable. Providing vouchers would not then be comparable as this would be an additional expense above what the catering companies are already being paid.

If, on the other hand, the government has created a new contract specifically for the purpose of providing these boxes and the companies are getting £30 per box of this quality, that would be scandalous!

Does anybody have any facts about which of these situations we are in?

MA box of veg and stock cubes is ideal to make up soups. Couple of loaves of wholemeal bread to go with it. The kids can learn about veg and making foods as part of home schooling and are getting nutritious lunches. All for little cost and it's a warm meal.

I don't really know what to say 🙄

@Crumbleandcake how can you say that? Especially in this climate of mass job losses and economic downturn, how can you say that it's completely the parents' fault that they are struggling? What you also need to remember is that this is not a new additional benefit, this is supposed to be a replacement for something families are already recieving. You honestly think it's okay to completely shrug your shoulders at already struggling families who are used to being able to rely on their (often multuple) children being fed a meal in the middle of the day and then suddenly having to provide them because the so called support is completely inadequate? That's awful.

And a large box of veg and ingredients perhaps would be okay (for familied who have the time resources and skills to prepare them) but that's complete misdirection from the actual real life issue because that is not what is being received!!!

The original post was from Roadside mum on Twitter

@LucilleTheVampireBat

It would be great if people could stop using this thread as an exercise to "meal plan" and show us a) how frugal they are and b) how little they/their "beanpole" children eat.

Good point. Not to mention, boiling some vegetables in a stock cube isn't really making soup. It's basically just boiled veg, and a lot of kids won't like it anyway.

The triangle of quick, well and cheap. You can pick two but not three. You want a national roll out of something asap during Covid - guess what it's hard to do, everyone who can do it is already contracted and everyone in the supply chain wants a premium.

It would have been cheaper to give parents vouchers to spend.

Well the children should just shut up and deal boiled veg soup 5 days a week because they are POOR so they will like whatever they are given, clearly - right @Crumbleandcake?

[quote emptydreamer]@DuncinToffee
Ah, I see.
Well it adds up to ~£10 in retail prices, given small packaging, and ~30% is more or less reasonable overheads, a little bit on the high side.
For a primary child, I could make 5 very boring lunches out of that (not according to the guidance mentioned above, I'd use my own water, oil and salt).
Inadequate for a secondary age child, of course.[/quote]
They wouldn't have paid retail prices but the lower bulk wholesale prices.

Guess the overhead costs went on the measuring and bagging of ingredients...

Shambles

But not being able to afford a 4p stock cube to add to the soup is probably a deeper problem, that can't and won't be solved by food parcels covering school lunches for one child.

That doesn't justify paying a greedy private contractor 30 quid a fortnight for a tiny amount of raw food which in most cases needs to be cooked. They are supposed to be providing meals. Which means at the very least everything needed to cook them.

How is the missing £25 per box justified?

I get that there are additional costs to providing the boxes but I don’t see how £30 per child translates to £5-6 worth of food. As others have pointed out supermarkets and even those fresh food box companies (like hello fresh) can provide far more for that amount despite doing so for a profit.

But not being able to afford a 4p stock cube to add to the soup is probably a deeper problem, that can't and won't be solved by food parcels covering school lunches for one child

In reality though, it's not about affording absolutely no food and relying solely on the lunches provided. It's likely more a case for many families of not being to make up the short fall of providing lunches 5 extra days a week when previously they got this for free, and this is exacerbated if there is more than one child to provide for if your shopping budget ia stretched to the max.

I have never qualified for FSM but I have been that parent that has had to budget down to the absolute penny, literally, and have relied on stuff like having tea at my mums to help cut down my weekly budget. It is a bleak situation to be in and that was with me being well taught to cook and budget.