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A “substantial gap” between the funding for school meals and the actual cost of providing them puts the government’s updated school food standards in jeopardy, experts have warned.

The new school food standards, launched this week by the Department for Education, will place additional responsibilities on schools to make school meals healthier.

But data shared exclusively with ����Vlog reveals that England’s school meal funding rate has only increased by 11 per cent since 2020 - a significantly lower rise than across the rest of the UK.

Experts warn that, given the sharp increase in food prices in recent years, schools will likely struggle to deliver the changes without a funding uplift, with the new expectations described as “utterly unrealistic” by the country’s biggest education union.

English schools get less funding for meals

Schools in England currently receive £2.61 per pupil to fund school meals - well below the funding in Wales (£3.40), Scotland (£3.30) and Northern Ireland (£3.10).

England has also seen the slowest growth in funding out of all four nations, only increasing by 27p, or 11 per cent, in the past five years.

Meanwhile, funding has risen by 50p in Northern Ireland, £1 in Scotland and £3.40 in Wales over the same time period.

There is no standardised cost-per-pupil metric in the UK, but a by Northumbria University, published before the launch of the updated school food standards, says that caterers are already charging schools an average of £3 per meal.

Caterers report that this charge is below the real cost of providing a meal that aligns with the current school food standards, which the report’s researchers calculated as between £3.15 and £3.40.

Food costs increased in pilot scheme

Luke Consiglio, CEO of school catering company The Pantry, took part in a government pilot scheme to test the updated standards.

Food costs increased by around 20p per pupil, per day, in the pilot.

“These reforms, while well-intentioned, risk increasing costs further without addressing the funding gap,” Mr Consiglio said.

There was also a 15 per cent drop in school meal uptake during the pilot scheme, which took place in a East Sussex primary school last December.

“When we spoke directly to parents, the feedback was consistent; the decline was driven by the changes to the menu,” Mr Consiglio, who is also director for London and the South East at The School Food People, said.

He is concerned that the new healthier school food standards will “drive children to packed lunches, where there is no monitoring”.

In secondary schools, Mr Consiglio warned that students may instead buy food on their way into school or eat at a fast-food restaurant after school.

Unions call for more funding

While all of the experts and leaders whom ����Vlog spoke to welcomed healthier school menus, they raised fears about how schools will manage to deliver the extra responsibilities with no additional funding.

“Cutting funding in real terms while expecting standards to rise is utterly unrealistic,” Daniel Kebede, general secretary of the NEU teaching union, said.

Pepe Di’Iasio, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said that there is “clearly a substantial gap between the school meal funding rate and the actual costs of providing healthy, nutritious food”.

“It is a fair bet that additional requirements will mean additional cost pressures,” Mr Di’lasio said.

����Vlog understands that the government is keeping current funding rates under review.

It also plans to work with the sector to understand pressures within the school food market.

Natalie Highfield, senior equalities officer at the NAHT school leaders’ union, welcomed the plans for healthier meals but warned that the system is already under significant strain.

“Without additional uplift or flexibility, there is a real risk that schools will struggle to deliver the changes equitably and sustainably,” she said.

Brad Pearce, national chair of The School Food People, welcomed the standards but warned that they must be properly funded to be deliverable.

“In England, funding equates to just £2.61 per day for food and labour, rising to £2.66 in September, despite food costs increasing by around 40 per cent since 2020 - leaving England behind Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland,” Mr Pearce said.

Without a funding settlement that reflects the true cost of delivery, schools will continue to subsidise meals, putting pressure on already strained budgets, he added.

����Vlog asked the DfE whether it carried out any other pilot schemes for the school food standards, whether it would be increasing the funding rate and, if not, what the justification was.

The DfE said it carried out a “number” of pilots, but would not confirm that number, saying that findings would be published “in due course”.

However, the DfE did say that the new school food standards were “thoroughly tested with caterers, schools and nutritional experts to make sure they are deliverable, realistic and don’t have detrimental knock-on effects to parents and pupils”.

“Throughout this process, we found that many schools across the country are already creating affordable, delicious meals that meet these standards, with some seeing an increase in uptake of up to 220 per cent following improvements to the menu. Several saw the cost of meals fall,” a spokesperson said.

“We have set aside over £1 billion in funding over the multi-year spending review period to cover additional meal costs for the expansion of free school meals, and are working closely with the sector to ensure this is deliverable.”

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