School dinners to be cheaper than chips

Released 05/01/2012

Thanks to a change in government guidelines, school caterers can now offer special prices to those who regularly eat in their school canteen.

Schools to offer cheap meals to encourage healthy eating

In a bid to tackle childhood obesity, school caterers have been given the go ahead to offer cheaper meals to certain groups of children, as an incentive to bring them into the canteen and away from takeaways and fast food restaurants.

The hope is that providing cheap but healthier alternatives will make children think twice about taking the ‘cheap as chips’ option, and will encourage them to use their school canteen.

Sarah Teather announced the plans today: “School meals beat takeaways hands down on the quality of food they serve, but up until now they have struggled to compete on price. Getting children into the school canteen is vital – the benefits of healthy school meals are clear. These new powers are an important step in tackling childhood obesity and will mean schools can help hard-pressed families.”

Previous guidelines meant that caterers had to charge the same price to every individual student, but they will now be able to have special offers for brothers and sisters who regularly eat in the canteen, or cheap meals for a different year group on certain days

The changes come as statistics released by the NHS Information Centre show that childhood obesity is on the increase in final year primary students, with 19% of year six pupils reported to be obese.

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