Commenting as LACA - The School Food People - release a survey today (Mon 10th Oct) showing that rising food costs are leading to worsening school meals, Dr Paul Gosling, president of school leaders’ union NAHT and head teacher of a primary school in Devon, said:

“The funding that schools receive for providing meals needs to be increased to cover their cost of production.

“In the school I run we have our own kitchens and employ our own kitchen staff. We provide meals for our pupils and for another school a couple of miles away which has no kitchen facilities.

“We are finding that food costs and staff costs have risen to the point that the money that we get for infants and the 45% of children who have free school meals (£2.47) does not cover the cost of providing the meals. Add the cost of energy to this and the problem is worse.

“We are determined not to put the price of school meals up for those families who pay for meals (£2.30). The actual cost of producing a meal is probably closer to £2.60 so I make a 23-30p loss per meal. We provide 120 meals a day so (on 23p loss) that is £27.60 a day or, as the school is open for 190 days a year, £5,244 a year.

“This money comes from the main school budget. The school is subsiding the provision of meals at the cost of other things like staff and the curriculum. I know that this is a problem for many schools. We could cut costs but we will not, we want to provide a nourishing and nutritious meal to all the children that need one.

“Rising prices mean that schools and caterers have to choose between reducing costs, charging more, or losing money. The only thing that will solve this is more funding from the government.”