Too Many Cooks in the Kitchen

New Ground 67
Autumn 2004

As children’s eating becomes a hot topic, Matthew Bell argues in favour of a more community-based approach to school meals provision

The financial waste, apathy and inefficiency in current catering provision in schools beggars belief. It seems that local authorities and private catering companies run a school meal system based on buying cheap food and selling it to school kids to make a profit.

The current system only benefits shareholders in large catering corporations. Those they serve have no say in the process; "contracting out" demotes kitchen staff to microwave operators and bulk buying of "cheap" imported food means more food miles. Kids are swallowing the diet of sugar, fat and salt thrust at them through advertisments and the result is sluggish, unhappy children. Astonishingly, we now spend around 31 pence per school meal compared with 60 pence per meal for prisoners, according to the Soil Association's Food for Life Report. But if any other route is ‘uneconomic’, why are the alternatives doing so well? Despite the culture of non-responsibility amongst catering companies, local authorities and central government, I am working with prominent organic farmer Jim Collins and local organic and non-organic farmers to change the face of school meals in Essex and parts of London.

Following its award of sports college status, Barking Abbey School’s head master Mark Lloyd banned fizzy drinks vending machines. In April, he took the school out of local authority catering and encouraged head cook Ruth Watts to source more healthy fresh produce and fundamentally change the menus.

Ashlyns Organic Farm (Jim’s farm) now supplies the school with most of its fresh produce and dispels the myth of "expensive organic". Target spend is up to 65p per meal and "middlemen" and bureaucracy in the supply chain has been reduced. This, together with a catering service for the wider community, is helping to subsidise the improvements and uptake of meals.

The few pilot schemes like this around the country are working well compared with the other systems, despite lack of support. They are bringing the community back into play, achieving better nutritional standards and educating kids about their environment and health. Reducing food miles and farm inputs dramatically cuts greenhouse gas emissions and local suppliers mean greater freshness. School food in this context is beneficial to the education system, the environment and the local economy.

So what needs to be done? The government has set up a public sector procurement group within Defra to "look at the issue". The next step is getting more resources into these already high achieving schemes and communicating the results intelligently. Some £8000 per region in England has so far been earmarked for such schemes, the equivalent to one scheme per region! Nothing like backing a good idea with real resources!

I urge SERA members to help the government see the light and establish a new fund through the National Lottery’s New Opportunities Fund to allow these enthusiastic people to set up projects and implement change in their schools and local communities. Lottery Funding, PFI and PPP tools could all play a part, but we need to get the community into school food in a way that has not happened before.

Matthew Bell