Mashed potato, gravy, custard. When British people hear the words “school dinners”, it’s not always great memories that come to mind. That’s not the case for everyone. Indeed France is known for its gourmet school lunches cooked by onsite chefs – bon appétit!
But in the UK people have been complaining about school meals for a long time. Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver campaigned against cheap processed foods like “turkey twizzlers” in the early 2000s. And Margaret Thatcher, the UK’s prime minister in the 1970s, was nicknamed the “milk snatcher” when she was education secretary because she stopped free milk for children in schools.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic, more children than ever before have become eligible for free school meals. In fact, 1.9 million children (22.5% of all school-age children in England) were eligible for free school lunches in 2022 – up from 17.3% in 2020. Free school meals have long been used as a measure of poverty. Children are eligible if they come from families with low incomes or who receive certain benefits.
The provision of free school meals has become particularly significant as levels of child poverty in the UK have risen. And the pandemic highlighted the importance of ensuring that children from low-income families have access to nutritious meals. The government provided free meal vouchers to eligible children during school closures.
