With various costs rapidly rising, including the cost of food, fuel and labour, caterers are increasingly faced with more challenges to provide quality school meals for children. The duo talk about how funding for Universal Infant School Meals are not changing in-line with external factors on the economy.
School caterers are faced with greater difficulties in balancing costs with providing a nutritious meal, which play an essential role in a child’s learning and development. Families across the UK are set to be badly affected by these changes, with thousands of people edging towards poverty and needing the support through free school meals.
Blake and Kemp also highlight the importance of funding and feeding children quality food, plus what caterers can do to help alleviate the challenges they face. Recently Kemp has written to Prime Minister Boris Johnson to point out measures that need to be taken to support the industry.
The podcast can be found on any podcast platform (Apple, Spotify and Amazon Music) by searching ‘Talking food with Bidfood’, or you can find it here: https://www.bidfood.co.uk/podcast/forward-thinking/talking-school-catering-in-2022/.