Free School Meals Update — A little pressure goes a long way

Looking at what Chartwells and Innovate are doing now

Lunch companies — an update
So, credit where credit is due. You all remember the main sad lunch picture that was circulating last week showing a week of lunches from catering company Chartwells?

I didn’t have one of those personally as for some reason my Chartwells supplied school had daily packed lunches that were good.

Anyway… yesterday we were told that our hamper would not be ready until Wednesday due to supply issues.

A small discussion on Twitter later, with some support from Kieran Williams, and our hampers would be ready to collect by the end of the day.

Wow.

I was not prepared.

This is food for one child’s lunches for five days. To clarify, it contains:

• 3 bananas
  3 cans of baked beans (Heinz)
  2 tins of tuna
  2 tins of chopped tomatoes
  3 baking potatoes
  4 carrots (whole ones n everything)
• 2 sweet potatoes
  4 sachets of mayo
  2 tomatoes
  2 satsumas
• 2 apples
  1kg pasta
  3 onions
  1 bulb garlic
• 200g cheese
  250g butter
• 2 frubes
• 2 packs sultanas/raisins
• 1 lunchbox malt loaf
  1 loaf of lovely looking bread

Honestly. I feel that Chartwells have taken on board the criticism and run with it, as well as issuing a full apology and addressing various points.

Now onto Innovate Catering from the Impact Food Group.

I am still talking to John Hamill, CEO of Impact Food Group, trying to get answers as to how the appalling parcel that we received happened, what they are now providing, what changes they are introducing with regards food hygiene etc.

On the part of my personal school, Innovate gave every FSM child a £15 voucher to apologise. I do not know if that happened with every school who was given substandard food — if you are at an Innovate school and could let me know, that would be great.

The main thing however is that they have not as of time of writing, given a full public apology.

They managed to dodge the brunt of the media storm, with Chartwells taking the full force, but that does not mean that they do not need to publicly acknowledge and own their mistakes.

By holding these companies to account, changes are being made.

Now if only the same could be said for our government.