What £3 a day can get Free School Meal families

The issue was brought to national attention following a social media post from a parent by the name of ‘Roadside Mum’.

The tweet showed a photograph of a food parcel provided by the catering company Chartwells which included a meagre package of bread, tin of beans, block of cheese, bag of pasta, yoghurt frubes and Soreen malt bar. The photograph did show a limited amount of fruit and vegetables, much of which appeared to be past their best.

After calculating an estimated cost of £5.22 for the week’s worth of food the mum questioned where the rest of the funding – which she believed to have been £15 per child - had been spent.

With many local primary school parents also left underwhelmed by their FSM parcels many families would prefer a voucher system such as the one used over the Christmas holiday and adopted by many secondary schools.

Kim Smith, whose three children go to New Horizon Primary School in Portsmouth, commented: ‘A voucher system is much better as you can tailor it to what children want. I know if I had a £15 voucher then I could get far better food that I know my children like.’

It’s a sentiment shared by Park Community School headteacher Chris Anders and his Public Sector Chef of the Year Steve Cross who said the voucher system ‘allows parental choice’ as well as removing the labour costs of ‘boxing and delivering parcels’.

We decided to put this theory to the test with a virtual shop at Morrisons, Sainsbury’s and Aldi.

With FSM daily funding of around £3 for every Portsmouth FSM child we have been looking what you could get to feed an average of two children on a budget of £30 per week.

At all outlets the budget allowed the purchase of protein rich products including fresh chicken fillets, meatballs, fish fingers and pork sausages. This is in contrast to the tinned fish and processed sliced meat displayed in photographs of food parcels.

While photographs have been posted on our Facebook site showing fruit and vegetables the variation and freshness appears limited. At all three supermarkets we were able to purchase a large and varied range of these perishable products. Foods included half a dozen apples and oranges, bananas, large pack of potatoes and a mixture of vegetables including carrots, broccoli and peas.

Each shop also included a range of sauces, dairy products, pasta and mushrooms which can be used to prepare freshly cooked nutritious meals. Below is a list of what was bought from each shop along with the total cost.

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Morrisons

Pack of potatoes, Clover margarine spread, tomato and garlic pasta sauce, six oranges, cucumber, pack of rice, dozen free range eggs, loaf of white bread, packet of pasta, pack of sweetcorn, countrymix vegetables, box of mushrooms, block of cheese, butter chicken sauce, six apples, litre of milk, dozen meatballs, bag of garden peas, pack of fresh chicken fillets, bunch of bananas and box of ten fish fingers.

Total cost – £31.05

Aldi

Two loaves of wholemeal bread, four pints of milk, Greenvale margarine spread, 400g of cheese, box of 10 eggs, tin of vegetable soup, tin of tomato soup, butter chicken sauce, gravy granules, tin of mixed beans, tin of beans and sausages, raspberry jam, box of cereal, 800g sweetcorn, 1kg of rice, tomato pasta sauce, 500g of pasta, dozen sausages, 680g of meatballs, 1kg of chicken thighs, cucumbers, 200g box of mushrooms, selection of broccoli, 1kg of carrots, 8 baking potatoes, 10 apples, 600g of oranges, 10 fish fingers, 907g of garden peas and 1.5kg of chips.

Total cost – £28.45

Sainsbury’s

Dolmio pasta sauce, butter chicken sauce, 350g of meatballs, 500g of cheese, two pints of milk, eight pork sausages, Sainsbury’s tomato and pasta sauce, strawberry jam, tin of vegetable soup, half-a-dozen eggs, two baking potatoes, one carrot, 1.8kg of chicken thighs, 300g of mushrooms, one banana, one pack of pasta, 910g of garden peas, 2 loaves of wholemeal bread, 1 cucumber, half-a-dozen apples, 1kg mixed vegetables, margarine spread, 1kg of rice, 10 fish fingers and four tins of beans.

Total cost – £27.16

A message from the Editor, Mark Waldron

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