To think the 'kids eat out for less' offers don't actually help

[Ntsure]

It seems like places started doing this when schools were giving out the food vouchers etc as a way to look like they were trying to help kids have adequate food in school holidays.
it only really benefits those who can afford to eat out in the first place.
its just a bunch of restaurants trying to give across the image that they care whilst not actually helping anyone that needs help.
(with the exception of Asda who are doing kids meals for £1 without requiring any other purchases)

It’s also quite a strange expectation that businesses should be filling their tables up with families where the adults are buying nothing and are only there because the kids meals are £1 (or something).

They actually need to make money so that they can continue paying their staff.

The Asda deal may seem great and very generous but at the end of the day they are a business and they will be hoping people who use the deal will also go and do some shopping in the store. They want more customers in store rather than in the cafe.

YANBU

obviously they’re businesses not charities and they’re under no obligation to feed kids free/cheaply

BUT it’s the way they’re promoting it as helping kids and families eat when actually the families struggling the most probably can’t afford to take advantage of these deals. By all means, promote cheap kids meals to attract families, but they shouldn’t make out they’re doing it out of the goodness of their heart to help starving children.

It's a marketing strategy that has been around for years. It isn't the job of restaurants to alleviate poverty, that's the government's job if they wanted to do it, which they don't.

Restaurants are there to make a profit, and after lockdown, many of them are still struggling. Anything that will being in the public, as long as it's legal, is reasonable.

It’s marketing. But to be fair the restaurants don’t have a responsibility to ensure free meals for anyone.

i think the Asda offer is good. It means you could just get a coffee and get a meal each for your kids for under a fiver. The kids will feel like they’ve had a ‘treat’ as they’ve been out for lunch but it hasn’t broken the bank like other places would.

Most of them aren’t promoting this as helping starving children to eat though. Mostly the actual restaurants promote this stuff as ‘kids eat free’ (see small print) to seem more appealing to people who were going to be eating out anyway.

See, for example, the first thing that came up in my Google search. The whole thing is framed as a weekday treat for the family. Not some charitable act to support the destitute.

Hungry horse framing a kids eat free breakfast deal as helping you have a less stressful morning.

These are entirely representative of the sort of claims being made. Business generally aren’t pretending they’re tackling child poverty by discounting their kids meals.

if people making lists are framing it differently, that’s not the businesses’ fault.

Asda are an outlier in actually promoting this as some sort of charitable attempt to prevent holiday hunger.

But most restaurants go for the ‘making it a bit easier/nicer’ angle.

You're saying that like it's a bad thing or somehow a hidden underhand motive

They are offering something that benefits both them and the customer, no one's forced to take them up on that offer

Some posters seem to have to find fault with everything.

As most people have already said, it’s a marketing tactic.

It isn’t going to help the people with the absolute lowest incomes, as it’s never going to be the cheapest way to eat. Where it will help, is with people who have got a little bit of spending money spare, but not much, who want to make it stretch as far as possible.

I’ll probably use deals like this on days out instead of eating in more expensive on-site cafes etc. I know I’m in a fortunate position compared to some, but that doesn’t mean I don’t need to tighten my belt.

It’s not charity, it’s business, but that doesn’t make it useless.

We lived off that Asda offer last year, it meant my DD got one hot meal a day and then a sandwich and fruit for supper. I will do it this year too.

@AllThatFancyPaintsAsFair I don't think it is a bad thing at all but I do think that Asda hope to reap benefits from it.

We should all take our families to ASDA for this deal, and make it clear that this is so good for business that other supermarkets follow suit.

If families got in the habit of eating together in an ASDA café this summer, or teenagers meeting up to socialise around a meal table, that seems positive to me.

This. Surely No one actually thinks these offers are intended to look like they're helping people in food poverty?

It's a special offer to tempt parents to spend money. No different to a multibuy discount in the supermarket.

It's a difficult one.
Our local Morrisons do a 'kids eat for free' deal.

I get that it's great but the adult needs to buy a adult meal ... maybe £4.99.

Trouble is, the kids meals are chips n shite usually.

£4.99 can buy you a small chicken plus a couple of carrots, a small bag of peas and a large potato or two.

Trouble is, so many people are scared of cooking from scratch.
I really wish Home Economics was a compulsory subject to the age of 16.
It doesn't need to be an exam subject, more of a life skill.

There have been umpteen posts on MN about how to cook something or how to eek out something.

People shouldn't get to the point of marrying/cohabiting and having children without knowing how to cook.

I don't think I'm imagining that all these offers started being heavily promoted about the same time as the whole Marcus rashford/free school meals debate. These offers may have always been around but they weren't as known.
every time someone posta thread on here about not having enough money for food these offers are suggested so it can't be just me that has the idea they've been promoted in this way.

I took my kids into asda cafe for a quick dinner last week after a club they go to and ordered 2 chicken nugget and chips meals. He charged me £4.20. when i questioned it he seemed to think that the accompanying adult had to purchase something of at least £1 value before the kids could eat for £1 each. Does anyone know if thats correct?
The meals were also supposed to have beans but didnt as they didnt have any.

… but is this wrong?

A lot of them are one free kids meal per paying adult. Doesn’t help much if you’re a single parent with more than one child

The £1 offer doesn't start until 25th July I think

In England the offer is running for the summer holidays only so wouldn’t be valid yet. I’m not sure about Scotland as I know the holidays are earlier there.

@ReginaGeorgeismyname and @Thesearmsofmine
I'm in scotland, it started on 24th june here.

I messaged them on fb to check and they assured me no minimum spend required by anyone for this offer.

Ok but you can't expect a hot meal for nothing. They are doing it thr right way but it seems like even that is an issue.

Wow the sense of audacity and entitlement. Did the government force anyone to have children?

When I was a waitress in the early 2000s we used to do kids eat free on Sundays with an adult buying a main meal. It's not new