Ketchup taken off lunchtime school menus

Parents have voiced their disappointment and dismay with the decision to remove the ketchup. Sharon Chapman, whose eight-year-old son goes to Peterston-Super-Ely primary school, commented on the decision: "We have worked really hard to get the healthy meals introduced – but there's healthy and there's plain ridiculous. It's only once a week the children get to have a burger and when they have to eat it dry it spoils it for them. All children like ketchup." Meanwhile Mary Hesford, business manager for Vale Catering Services, which provides the primary schools' menu, argued: "Children can have a tomato sauce but now it's one our cooks make themselves. By using homemade sauce we can control what nutrients are in there. Ketchup bought in bottles can have high levels of salt and sugar that could be damaging for children." This move comes after a school in Ceredigion had banned its pupils from eating Marmite because it believes the spread contains too much salt.