Facts & Figures

The Government has wasted over £50 million since the year 2000 on at least 17 separate initiatives to improve hospital food, which have "resulted in almost no improvement to the quality of meals served", according to a new report. Nine out of ten (92%) mums are misled by tactics manufacturers use to market children's foods loaded with fat, salt and sugar a British Heart Foundation survey has said. The survey also revealed that eight out of ten (84%) parents supported calls for a single, front of pack food labelling scheme. A new study in the US has found that displaying nutritional content such as calorie information, levels of fat and salt do stop restaurant diners eating too much. Valued at £1.7 billion in 2009, sales of potatoes have grown a smashing 27% since 2004. And the future is set to be equally as steamy for the simple spud, with volume sales forecast to increase by 6% in the next 5 years to reach 2.3 million tonnes. Meanwhile, value sales of potatoes will increase a further 23% in the next five years, and by 2013, we'll be chipping, mashing and boiling our way through £2 billion worth of the stuff. Last season (08/09) the Lindley Group increased revenue returned to clubs by an average of 12.5%, with some clubs achieving increases as high as 21% and 22%. Harrison Catering Services was founded by Geoffrey Harrison fifteen years ago and has a current turnover of just under £50 million. The contract supports over 900 pupils aged from 14-18 along with over 100 staff at their site in Croydon. Just over one in five children in England start their school life overweight or obese, says a report from The NHS Information Centre. And figures for those in the final year of primary school – Year 6 – show that the number of children who are overweight or obese is nearly one in three.