Opinion: The real problems with school food

By Leigh Powell, national officer for private contractors

The government has announced a new set of school food standards and has opened a nine-week consultation.

The new standards are designed to encourage healthier eating in the wake of increasing numbers of children with poor dental health and obesity.

These are laudable aims and ones we support, however UNISON members working in school kitchens are concerned that the standards will be imposed on hard-working kitchen staff without tackling the systemic problems that have led to the issues in the first place.

The first and foremost problem is outsourcing. Too many school leaders do not take full responsibility for their kitchens and have contracted-out services to the private sector.

These private sector companies are laser-focused on ensuring that profit margins are healthy, rather than the food they serve. And how have profit margins been maintained? By cutting the pay, terms and conditions of hard-working staff in kitchens.

Staff need, and deserve, to feel valued for the work they do and this is not easy for those who are not even paid the real living wage, do not receive occupational sick pay and have paltry pensions.

On top of that, resources have been cut to the bone. Many members report working with equipment that is not fit for purpose and is not replaced if it breaks. Dinner ‘hours’ have been cut back in many schools giving little time to serve proper meals and staff are not given enough time to prepare the food in what are often short-staffed kitchens.

Many staff report not being provided with the necessary personal protective equipment – for example, non-slip shoes – required for their health and safety. On top of all this, funding for school meals is wholly inadequate and has been for many years.

But despite all this, school meals workers are doing a sterling job. Despite what some in the media would have you believe, staff are preparing meals, even bread, from scratch using fresh ingredients although the quality of those ingredients often leaves something to be desired due to a focus on profits.

It’s important that school meals workers – the people most affected by these changes – have their views recognised in this consultation so that the hard-working staff in school kitchens are not blamed for problems created elsewhere.

If you work in a kitchen and want to tell us your views on the new school food standards, please email us and we will ensure that the government knows just what you are facing.