Event: The Big School Meals Debate
We recently hosted a roundtable event, with the great and the good of contract catering and LACA coming together with one focus: saving the provision of school meals...
Long-term readers will know that in the past we have regularly hosted roundtable events. These debates provide a chance for experts from the contract catering world to get together, collaborate positively and discuss the best way forward for the industry.
Sadly, assembling everyone has been a touch trickier in recent years and we haven’t been able to host one since before the pandemic. However, impetus was provided recently by one burning issue that not only dominates our industry, but regularly gets top billing on the national news.
While our previous discussions have been more general, covering the whole of contract catering, it was decided that the topic that demanded attention – and immediately – was the one of education. More specifically, the debate was to cover the financial crisis that is growing around providing school meals for the children who most need them.
To this end, 12 industry experts (see box) kindly attended a meeting hosted at First Choice Catering Spares in Cannock, Staffordshire. We were, of course, extremely grateful for our attendees’ time, input and, above all, the candour they spoke with, despite being in a room full of ‘competitors’.
The issues
Jane Renton kicked off the discussion by asking each of the attendees to voice their biggest current concern with regard to school food provision. Brad Pearce of CATERed was particularly well placed to provide an overview from his perspective as the current national chair of LACA – The School Food People.
“Picking up on the feedback from our national LACA surveys across the last year, the focus has been on rising costs, recruitment and stagnant funding, and how hard it is to keep services going,” he said. “We've got this real issue at the moment where cost is far outstripping the funding that's coming in, and how do you continue to deliver high-quality food to the children who need it?”
Judith Gregory, representing the LACA Wales region, followed, saying: “The big challenges in Wales at the moment – obviously we've got the introduction of Universal Free School Meals for primary school children – but to be able to manage and deliver that programme, we need more staff. So staff recruitment is a big issue for us, plus we have also got the rising cost of food.”
Interestingly, speaking from a supplier perspective, Andy North from EF-group backed up both of these specific points, saying: “The issues I see are standards affected by food prices and a shortage of skills within the kitchen environment.”
Laura Hadley of SIPS was in agreement, though was able to add some positive news, adding: “Our biggest challenges are similar to everyone else’s – the funding and staffing issues – though thankfully supply chain issues have calmed down for us at the moment.”
Her colleague Brian Cape believed that the biggest issue was sustainability – though sadly he didn’t have a belief that caterers would have any time to prioritise the positives provided by focusing on green initiatives. His more pressing concern was preserving the school meals service itself.
“I want to talk about sustainability, not only for the benefit of children and schools, but for catering suppliers as well,” he said. “I think we've got a potential existential challenge on our hands, that some suppliers may well end up going to the wall.
“Having the perspective of looking at schools’ finances across the board, funding the schools isn't just about free school meals, it's all of the other aspects that teachers are currently striking for. The unions will maintain that they aren’t striking because they want more money, they’re striking so that schools are properly and adequately funded, so they don't have attrition levels within the system and they are attracting the right talent for the future. There are massive pressures within the entire system and I think catering is a bit of a microcosm of all of that.”
Neil Fuller of Caterlink picked this point up and ran with it, saying starkly: “I would say the key challenge is the financial sustainability of the industry, because where it is currently, particularly for smaller schools in rural locations, it's not sustainable under the current financial model for us as private caterers. And therefore, what is the solution for the children in those locations?”
Geoff Campion of Chartwells tried to look for answers, saying: “The way to tackle this is to review the funding levels and the funding structures to ensure that the money flows through properly to caterers. It's a very complex puzzle, because it's not simply a case of putting more money in the top and it'll come out at the bottom.
“For example, in some instances, government funding for school catering is being used to prop up other areas of school budgets. With double-digit inflation, it's really making the situation for the industry very stark. Static funding levels over the past seven, eight years have seen businesses swap products, evolve operations and develop new operating formats to mitigate inflation and continue a quality service.
“Now, in the face of unprecedented food inflation, the education sector is disproportionately impacted due to the typical basket of goods that it purchases and the efficiencies that it has engineered to mitigate static funding.”
School standards
This led to Renton asking about the school foods standards. Specifically, she wanted to know, are they still being met and, frankly, is anyone even checking anyway?
“Members are telling us that they're not being swept away,” replied Pearce. “They're still meeting, and have every intention of meeting, the standards. What is definitely being seen is a move to meet the standards to their very limit. So, where we might have given out a bigger portion of, say, chicken fillet, it is now the really prescriptive size that it should be.”
“It's not possible for us to go below the school food standards,” confirmed Campion. “Something that needs to be discussed is that actually, if you're a parent or a general consumer, and you see that headline figure of £2.41 per meal [in England], you don't understand what goes into that. You don’t understand that the labour, the sundries and the food cost sits behind that. As an industry, we need to do a better job to try and raise awareness at just a general parent level.”
On the subject of finance, Luke Consiglio stated that, when it comes to contracts, from The Pantry’s perspective “cheapest doesn't always win”. “I would say that the majority the time, we could never be cheaper than you guys,” he added. “And we are on board at just over a hundred schools now. I don't think it always wins.”
Rosemary Molinari from Sodexo ended the first session by looking to the bigger picture, summarising: “My feeling is that school meal providers have been almost sleepwalking through this since the devolved budget of 2011. We've taken some of the hits – and we’ve celebrated the highs, like Universal Free School Meals – but the big things such as Brexit, Covid, they’ve just chipped away, and now it is the war in Ukraine. They have collectively impacted on recruitment, food supply, costs and energy provision, and everyone’s ability to provide a sustainable, equitable school food service.”
The situation
Next, the panel were tasked with outlining what the situation is as they see it on a day-to-day basis. Ben Robinson from Premier Foods kicked off by outlining an area that would come up again and again, saying: “There's an underappreciation of the service that's provided and that does come with education. It's one of those things where, we all moan about the NHS, but if we're not careful, we'll lose it. It's part of that education piece about appreciating what we have, the effort that goes into planning those 10,000 meals. That's what's missing for me.”
Fuller agreed, warning: “It’s particularly challenging from a financial perspective. We are acutely aware of the cost-of-living crisis for parents and budget restraints for schools. There have been occasions where we have been unable to reach agreement on an annual meal price review with schools and this has led to difficult conversations about the financial sustainability of a contract.”
Ringfencing had already been raised as one of most important issues by former LACA chair Pat Fellows, so would that help? “Yes, it would make a significant difference to the challenge,” Fuller replied.
Molinari agreed that something has to change in this regard, saying: “The definition of madness is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome, which is what seems to have been happening for two decades. Many schools no longer operate via a central director of education, instead they are managed through multiple academy trusts, with a freedom to act. We have to re-think and review school food provision through the ‘lens of the future’ to meet the needs of children and young people.
“It’s uncomfortable because, where is the child in all this? If you talk to the children, they will say dining halls are stressful for them, which we know impacts on their learning outcomes.”
“We are aware of some local authorities that are actively considering whether to continue to provide a school meal contract for schools to opt into,” Fuller noted.
This caused Cape to cast envious eyes across the border, saying: “I've used the word omnishambles, because of the fragmentation, and I look at a look at Scotland and Wales with massive envy. Not necessarily envy as a provider, but envy as a citizen and the fact that everything just seems to be much better joined up for people.”
This led to Gregory providing an overview on the differences in Wales, telling us that there are 22 authorities in total, with just two, Newport and Anglesey, being contracted out. So, how does that situation improve matters, asked Renton.
“There is no competition between any of us, so we are willing to share information in this collaboration, which benefits all of us. We've got three local authorities that share a dietician, to support with special diets. A lot of us will, if there is some exploration required regarding a product, piece of equipment or work process, get together to discuss it.
“This also helps when we're having dialogue with the Welsh government, who we have a really positive relationship with. That's not something that's happened overnight, it’s built up over the last four or five years.
“It started during the pandemic, when Welsh government was the first to start providing payments for free school meals. We didn't have to have a celebrity come along and say that we needed to provide them.”
Returning to England, our own education expert Fellows put all of this into perspective from her position of having led the charge on these subject for decades. “I don't want to be depressing, but I've been around a very long time and I have never seen anything like what's going on now,” she said. “At the moment, it appears to me and to others that no one in government, certainly, and from what we hear today, even in schools, is listening.
“And then we have these pressure groups, who quite rightly think that the other 800,000 children on benefits should be receiving a free school meal. Wonderful… but how the hell could we do it?
“Even with our facilities, we would need capital funding, we would need to have find some staff, because that's quite difficult at the moment. And we also have to have more money to do it. Because we don't get all of it, as has been discussed.
“In my opinion, at the moment, the provision of school meals is in jeopardy. I believe it is a very important provision. There are many children who are going hungry, many are even going to bed hungry. And I think that is a terrible reflection on us as a nation and on our government.”
The way forward
As the meeting drew to a close, the main theme that emerged was the requirement for more communication. The real need was to speak to the parents and let them know that the industry really is doing its best under extremely difficult circumstances.
“How can we get around the table with us, a group of parents, a group of teachers and a group from government?” concluded Consiglio. “The schools are looking at us as like it's more of a strain on their budget than a service nowadays. And the parents don't know that we are getting £1 for a meal rather than £3.
“If we told parents that, they would be picketing outside the schools. As a business, to say that is a real risk. But I would love to say that out loud.”
Consiglio and the panel are right. As the support for campaigns like those led by the footballer Marcus Rashford show, when it comes to school meals, the public, much like with the NHS, are extremely supportive. The problem is that it is an enormously complex situation that not everyone fully understands.
The way forward, surely, is for more collaboration of the kind seen at our roundtable, with caterers, campaigners, multi-academy trusts and local education Authoritiess alike coming together behind an easily understandable message focusing on how the funding received pays for so much more than the mere meal that end up on the plate. Because, when it comes to schools, it’s not just the children who need to be educated.
Footer: A huge thank you for all of our panel for their involvement. If you would like to be involved in a future debate, or have ideas on how to take further action on this particular topic, please email [email protected].
The Panel
Academy – Kevin Green
Cardiff Council/LACA Wales – Judith Gregory
CATERed/LACA – Brad Pearce
Caterlink – Neil Fuller
Chartwells – Geoff Campion
EF-group – Andy North
LACA (former chair) – Pat Fellows MBE
Premier Foods – Ben Robinson
Sodexo – Rosemary Molinari
SIPS – Brian Cape
SIPS – Laura Hadley
The Pantry – Luke Consiglio
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