The UK’s food and drink wholesale distributors service around 2,000 public sector contracts to schools, hospitals, prisons and other vital services, and in an alarming number of cases they are losing money to do it.
New public sector contracts will demand increased standards of sustainable sourcing, reduced-carbon distribution and nutritional content in the food provided.
When Universal Infant Free School Meals (UIFSM) were introduced in all primary schools in England in 2013, the Government set the value of a meal at £2.30. Nearly a decade later, it’s £2.41. The money for UIFSM is paid to schools directly, but it doesn’t all find its way to school caterers. Some gets diverted into other school budgets.
Bielby said: “When you consider that their other customer groups, like care homes and the hospitality sector, are also among the hardest hit by wage and cost increases, and that in the case of pubs, restaurants and hotels they have nowhere near recovered from 18 months of forced closure, you can understand why the distributors might think twice about renewing those loss-making contracts.
“That lack of public investment makes things very tight indeed for wholesalers who don’t just supply the food, but also offer recipe and menu advice, nutritional information, allergens support and help implementing Government nutritional standards. We’re already hearing of schools having to offer reduced menus or lower quality food, or ask parents who pay for school meals to contribute more to their cost.
“There’s no hiding the fact that food wholesalers would benefit from an injection of public money into their supply chain, but that extra funding isn’t going onto a huge pile of profit, it’s needed to prevent loss of food supply to vital services. Because if our members can’t make it work under the current support, there’s no one else who can either.”