EXCLUSIVE: Free School Meals update

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Update from Compass Food Group

In the last episode I mention that we sent an email to Compass Food Group, the email is shown here. We have received a response which seems to be extremely positive.

Email sent to Compass Food Group

I refer to this story in the Yorkshire evening Post, dated 12th January:
https://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/education/leeds-education-chief-shares-photo-council-food-hamper-mp-blasts-outsourcing-giants-3093951
Here is the link to the Leeds Councillors Twitter account in question:

It appears to show a publicly procured hamper of food and one from yourselves, privately procured. It appears to show a significant difference between the two methods. Would you care to comment?

I would also be interested in a comment from you relating to the apparent difference between food supplied from Chartwell’s for home schooling during the pandemic to that provided by Chartwell’s Independent, the popular opinion being that you favour the well-heeled. What would you say to this?

And this is the reply today 15th January 2021:

Thank you for taking the time to contact us. We take our responsibility to provide children with access to nutritious food very seriously. However, in our efforts to shift from providing meals in schools to food parcels when schools were closed at short notice, we are very sorry the quality and quantity fell short.

We want to do all that we can to support vulnerable families and where our food parcels have not met our usual high standards we will be refunding the costs. We are contacting every school we work with to understand where any shortages may have occurred and we are apologising to everyone affected. From Monday 18^th January we will ensure our food hampers reflect the additional £3.50 funding allocation communicated by the government and that every penny goes into the provision of the food. To try and prevent this issue arising again, we have put in place extra quality assurance checks at supplier level and within each individual school and allocated additional Chartwells employees to support. A free helpline for concerned schools and parents will go live on Monday 18^th January.

Getting nutritious food to children at home during lockdown is critical – and we know we need to put things right. So we are taking immediate action to ensure everything we do meets the exacting standards which rightly apply to children’s food. We have created a supply chain specifically to serve children with these parcels and moved to a one week cycle in order to include more fresh produce. We have increased the quantity and variety of products and will provide a detailed recipe guide to help families prepare nutritious lunches. We will take no profit on the provision of food parcels.

In light of this week’s events, and the very challenging circumstances many families find themselves in, we feel that it’s right we go further so we will provide free breakfasts to all children currently receiving a Chartwells lunch parcel from the 25th January for the duration of school closures. In addition, for those same children, we will offer schools the option of lunch parcels through the February half term at no cost.

As a member of the Marcus Rashford Child Poverty Taskforce, we are very focused on the review of the free school meals system. We have also engaged closely with policymakers, and together with the industry we have developed a series of protocols to try and ensure this doesn’t happen again.

I hope this reassures you of our commitments and that we are moving quickly to fix the problem and provide additional support where it’s needed the most.

Main points:

• Where our food parcels have not met our usual high standards we will be refunding the costs
• We are contacting every school we work with to understand where any shortages may have occurred and we are apologising to everyone affected.
• From Monday 18^th January we will ensure our food hampers reflect the additional £3.50 funding allocation communicated by the government and that every penny goes into the provision of the food.
• To try and prevent this issue arising again, we have put in place extra quality assurance checks at supplier level and within each individual school and allocated additional Chartwells employees to support.
• A free helpline for concerned schools and parents will go live on Monday 18^th January.
• We have increased the quantity and variety of products and will provide a detailed recipe guide to help families prepare nutritious lunches.
• We will take no profit on the provision of food parcels.
• We will provide free breakfasts to all children currently receiving a Chartwells lunch parcel from the 25th January for the duration of school closures.
• In addition, for those same children, we will offer schools the option of lunch parcels through the February half term at no cost.

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