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 is fascinating how a corrupt government giving handouts to mates and cronies can so easily point to poor children as the scapegoat.

The government is stealing from all of us, and some of you feel self righteous because you don't have to choose between the gas meter and tonight's dinner? That's what you care about? Fucksake.

Thank you @Wheresmykimchi. I don’t know which makes me angrier - the rip off which is literally taking the food out of kids’ mouths or the heartlessness of some posters.

The Government haven't chosen Chartwells as the supplier for hampers. Schools can choose who to supply them

@VinylDetective

Thank you *@Wheresmykimchi*. I don’t know which makes me angrier - the rip off which is literally taking the food out of kids’ mouths or the heartlessness of some posters.

It's the sheer ignorance for me. Those sitting in judgement of who should and shouldn't be given FSM.

Or the pedalling of the idea the government do like FSM just not in ' holidays'

@ineedaholidaynow

The Government haven't chosen Chartwells as the supplier for hampers. Schools can choose who to supply them

So is it the schools fault now?

Surely the school would choose a supplier believing they would get a good deal in good faith.
Why is nobody holding the government accountable?!

@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're not wrong about it being an unpopular opinion. That food is supposed to last 10 days, equivalent to school lunches. Why should poor and struggling families be grateful for what amounts to a pittance? The pp who mentioned that wages, storage etc comes out of the £30, whoever is running that business is clearly doing it wrong. Also the pp who said her kids would be happy with that for lunch presumably if they're still hungry she will more than likely have snacks available, these kids won't.

@Idontwannadance1

I was asking someone why the schools were giving out hampers instead of vouchers this time and was genuinely upset to hear that it was because parents were selling the food vouchers for half price so literally taking the food away from their children.

Yeah right. Perhaps a very few may have done but the vast vast majority certainly did not, and if there were parents who would do that do you not think they'd also sell the food in the hamper? Ffs

@SFHJ

If you were given that shit for ten days would you be grateful?

It's not about being grateful. What a patronising condescending term. Why should they be?

@Idontwannadance1

Schools have been backed into giving out vouchers because idiots in the media and on social media pedal the classist , stereotypical concept that FSM parents sell their vouchers and buy fags.

I'm sure the odd one does in the same way that there are people who abuse any system. But in the real world, these are few and far between.

The result of this stereotype is what is happening now (and those imaginary parents will just find different ways to fund their habits , but as a result everyone else's children will starve too.)

Does the bread really have a shelf life of a year as someone said upthread? What would be used to preserve bread for so long?

Can’t believe people are saying that others should shut up and be grateful. 😡

You need to hold the supplier to account. As a governor I will be wanting to make sure the supplier a school chooses is supplying value for money.

If you buy food from somewhere and you don't like it, would you blame the Government?

I have experience of Chartwells so I wouldn't be encouraging people to use them. But you also have to remember that schools (not the Government) have had to organise this in a hurry. So if a school uses Chartwells to provide their normal school meals I would assume on Monday night last week schools would have contacted their catering company (if they use one) to provide the hampers as they would needed to have provided food for their FSM pupils who are at home as soon as possible.

[quote Wheresmykimchi]@Idontwannadance1

Schools have been backed into giving out vouchers because idiots in the media and on social media pedal the classist , stereotypical concept that FSM parents sell their vouchers and buy fags.

I'm sure the odd one does in the same way that there are people who abuse any system. But in the real world, these are few and far between.

The result of this stereotype is what is happening now (and those imaginary parents will just find different ways to fund their habits , but as a result everyone else's children will starve too.)[/quote]

Quite!

And if anyone thinks that those parents that would have abused the voucher system are taking these food boxes and creatively preparing nutritious meals for their kids they are deluded. The kids that would have missed out through voucher abuse will still be missing out. No problem has actually been solved by this.

@ineedaholidaynow

You need to hold the supplier to account. As a governor I will be wanting to make sure the supplier a school chooses is supplying value for money.

If you buy food from somewhere and you don't like it, would you blame the Government?

I have experience of Chartwells so I wouldn't be encouraging people to use them. But you also have to remember that schools (not the Government) have had to organise this in a hurry. So if a school uses Chartwells to provide their normal school meals I would assume on Monday night last week schools would have contacted their catering company (if they use one) to provide the hampers as they would needed to have provided food for their FSM pupils who are at home as soon as possible.

Why should schools have to do the donkey work to create the problem created by the government?

No I wouldn't , but if Asda gave me a rubbish product id want a refund - I wouldn't be off to another supermarket to fix it for me.

@DianaT1969

How much would it cost one of the people complaining on here to set up a logistics project to get boxes of food to thousands of children? Let's say you won the contract. What would you need? Premises, vans or couriers, staff to source the food, an admin team to coordinate packing and dispatch, an accounts team to pay suppliers, heating, lighting, computer equipment, broadband, phones, broadband, insurance, vehicle insurance. The overheads are high.

The government could have done it cheaper through a partnership with supermarkets and their delivery network.

But don't think if the government pays £30 that there's going to be £25 worth of food in there.

No one is setting it up from scratch.

Premises , in schools that are open(so most of them).
Suppliers/organising - same as for school dinners
Staff - the staff that is in school.
The only real added cost is delivery, and that's only if school staff aren't doing it or parents collect it themselves.

Do you honestly think there's whole separate buildings with whole set of staff cutting up peppers into quarters to be delivered to FSM kids?

@ineedaholidaynow

You need to hold the supplier to account. As a governor I will be wanting to make sure the supplier a school chooses is supplying value for money.

If you buy food from somewhere and you don't like it, would you blame the Government?

I have experience of Chartwells so I wouldn't be encouraging people to use them. But you also have to remember that schools (not the Government) have had to organise this in a hurry. So if a school uses Chartwells to provide their normal school meals I would assume on Monday night last week schools would have contacted their catering company (if they use one) to provide the hampers as they would needed to have provided food for their FSM pupils who are at home as soon as possible.

The point is the problem of schools scrambling around was created by the government not just issuing vouchers. It would have cost less in terms of time and effort to distribute voucher codes then quartering onions to be wrapped in cling film and decanting tuna into non-food-grade plastic bags.

The government chose this option, forced it on everyone, because it was a good way for Tory mates to skim off the top and funnel some of it back into the party via donations.

A fantastic scheme, that. Too bad it's little kids eating dry cheese sandwiches for two weeks in the trot, who cares, eh

Could you imagine the uproar if care homes were given that to feed a pensioner 10 days of lunches?

A lot of people seem to be forgetting that a school lunch(FSM) is the main or ONLY meal some children get.

Still think it's enough? Still think it's acceptable? Still think they should be grateful?

A 20/25£ profit margin AND providing unsuitable and crap food to the most disadvantaged children in the country is unacceptable.

The sheer arrogance of the company to assume people would even agree with one or the other,even less so both!

@Gilead

Can’t believe people are saying that others should shut up and be grateful. 😡

I don't think there actually has been even a single poster on this thread who said that. I would personally be grateful if anyone sent a food hamper to my house (even if I didn't like the contents). But then I never got anything in my life for free.

@Wheresmykimchi schools provide FSM, they have details of which pupils need to receive FSM, whether these pupils will be in school or at home.

Chartwells have caused this problem, so they should be sorting out.

@GarlicMonkey

Could you imagine the uproar if care homes were given that to feed a pensioner 10 days of lunches?

I can.

Did you know that prisons get more per prisoner to provide food for a day than primary or secondary schools get for pupils?

I don't think there actually has been even a single poster on this thread who said that.

You’re right. There have been several. Gratitude shouldn’t come into it. Decent food is a basic human right.

This government is a fucking disaster and the public who voted for them is responsible for this.

@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.

If I remember rightly, people moaned the first time when supermarket vouchers were given out... saying either they couldn’t get to one or that it stigmatised them.

Could someone here please post an example of what exactly they think should be in the parcel and where it should come from?

People are never happy.......

Sounds fine to me as long as the block of cheese is quite big. I could easily live on that, even less.