School Dinners

[Info Freak]

Most people know with the recent media intrest that the limit on a school dinner is 37p, however school dinners tend to be a great deal more expensive. Does anyone one where the rest of the money goes and if school dinners can be greatly improved with an extra 10-15 pence is there aint logical explanation why the price can't be slightly raised?

[sunflower68]

Info this too has been bugging me recently.  I thought that school meals were subsidised by the govt, though why I thought that I don't know.  Surely catering companies aren't allowed to profit so well from schools?  Sorry I can't help; wanted to voice my support for your question really. 

[chongalolo]

I work in a school and as far as I understand, some of the money goes to pay the kitchen staff, some is spent on maintaining and buying equipment, and the school gets a few pennies per meal for their administration time.  l think that the rubbish they serve up is disgraceful (e.g. since when have tinned spaghetti hoops been a vegetable??)  We have seen combinations such as macaroni cheese with reconstituted mashed potatoes and sweetcorn....hmmmm!

We surveyed our parents once and most said they would be prepared to pay a little more for better food, and bigger portions for the older children.

[Tony Monero]

The limit on the cost of a school meal is NOT 37p, it varies from school to school and authority to authority. I work for a very successful contract catering company where the majority of our business is within the education sector. We currently manage a few local authority contracts for primary and junior schools and I can state that we spend considerably more money on the price of a school meal and as the majority of the offer to these schools is fresh food, the quality is far greater than the examples you recently viewed on televison. With regard to contract caterer's income as mentioned earlier, we as a company do not need the level of income that some of the larger contract caterers do as we are a privately owned company and do not need to boost todays share price. Please feel free to look at the company website http://www.harrisoncatering.co.uk