LACA reacts to school meal survey findings on portion size and uptake

LACA National Chair, Lynda Mitchell comments: "The nutritional standards that all caterers and schools should be following ensure that each meal is nutrient rich and a healthy balance of at least one portion of fruit and vegetables combined with starchy foods like pasta and rice, for example, as good sources of energy. "The menus are devised to provide a nutritionally-balanced school meal every day to help children concentrate and perform better in class as well as for their general health and wellbeing. "Portion size is determined by the nutritional standards which prescribe the amount of energy a school meal should provide. If the standards are being followed by schools then the portion sizes will be right. "As to the suggestion that caterers are cutting costs by reducing portion sizes, this is nonsense. Given that food costs are a smaller proportion of the overall operational costs in running a school meals service, cutting down on portions would be a negligible saving. "If cost cutting were needed, operators would be looking at making savings in other areas of higher expenditure such as labour. They would certainly not be penalising children and young people by trying to save minimal amounts of money in this way." The Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL) released the results yesterday of a survey conducted among education staff about their views on school meal issues. The survey found that respondents said there had been an increase in the uptake of free school meals (FSM) at their school or college in the past five years. Although half of them felt that there should not be any universal entitlement to FSM for any age group, 44% said they believed there should be for all primary pupils and a further 23% believe all secondary school students should also be entitled to them. On the exemption of academies and free schools from nutritional standards, currently the focus of a campaign jointly led by LACA, Sustain, School Food Matters, Children's Food Campaign, Food for Life Partnership and the Jamie Oliver Foundation, 82% of respondents said they believed new academies should comply with the nutritional standards. Media coverage of the ATL findings has focused on the observations in the survey by teachers about a reduction in school meal portion sizes and claims that children are going hungry in the afternoon. The inference has been that caterers are reducing portion sizes to cut costs.