Parents could soon have to pay more for school lunches because heads are struggling to find cash from their own tightly squeezed budgets to shield prices from food inflation.
Head teachers in England told i that they have been using their school funds to keep the cost of school meals down to as little at £2.20. If they didn’t do this the real cost would be more than a third more.
They are worried that if school dinner costs are pushed up they will price out children who don’t qualify for free meals but come from families struggling to make ends meet, and so have subsidised the meals.
But now absorbing the rising costs has become “very challenging” because of schools’ precarious funding situation.
i understands that many school caterers believe that average meal prices will need to be around £2.70 when schools return in September, although other experts say the cost may be £3 or more in many cases.
Glynn Potts, headteacher at Newman RC College in Oldham, Greater Manchester, is one head who has so far kept meal prices low. Children who pay for lunch at his school get a main meal, a dessert and a drink for £2.20.
