Fury over meagre UK school voucher food parcels
‘£30 food parcels’ found to contain as little as £5 worth of food
The UK government has been accused of ‘starving children’ as photos of food parcels emerge from around the country.
The food parcels are sent out to families of children entitled to free-school meals, who are learning remotely because of the Covid lockdown.
The parcels, which should contain £30 worth of food, have been found in some cases to contain as little as £5 worth. And some of the parcels are meant to last for 10 days of lunches.
In some pictures, you can see manky fruit and vegetables, and in one image, money bags are used to split tins of tuna.
Footballer and campaigner Marcus Rashford has slammed the meal parcels, calling them ‘unacceptable’.
Jack Monroe, author, anti-poverty campaigner, TV presenter and writer has also been tweeting pictures of the parcels, and working she socks off to make as many people aware of the awful situation as possible.
In one tweet, she demonstrated what £20 can buy you, without bulk discount...
One of the catering firms responsible for the food parcels, Chartwells, said it would investigate the issue, as did the Department of Education.
However, the fact this situation happened in the first place is the big issue, and many are rightly asking who is making significant sums of money from ripping off poor children and their families?
It looks like some schools have already decided to go back to the voucher system, where parents or carers are given a £30 voucher to spend in a supermarket. Hopefully more will follow suit soon, and the people profiting from hungry children will be held to account.
This of course all comes after charities, religious groups, individuals and businesses both small and large selflessly helped to feed children around the UK last October, out of their own pockets or from donations, when the government said it would not extend free school meals into holidays.
Whether serving hot meals or offering food parcels, the provisions offered back then, charitably, were more considerably more substantial for children – a sentiment echoed by Caroline Lucas today.
Join In
Comments (27)
Couldn’t they just give the food vouchers to the parents to buy what’s needed? I’m sure there will be some Klaus where they can’t be abused. 
Exactly! There was an argument doing the rounds that 'all the poor parents will spend the vouchers on ALCOHOL, and CIGARETTES' (which is obviously not something I remotely agree with/think was true), but that was used to stop the vouchers...
Read moreIf they put the vouchers in the parents name they can’t swap them for cash. You always get rubbish parents but you can’t punish the majority for the Minority.
As far I see someone is profiting from children going hungry and that’s as equally...
Read moreArmy rations have more stuff in it
It's so, so bad...
Dutch army has the same as the British army. So let's compare :P
This saddens me greatly. It seems like everyone's government is doing everything they can to ignore or forget about the people that they're supposed to be working to protect
In all seriousness, this really angers me. The fact that it’s worth nowhere near the amount they say it is is one thing, but when I found out the same company which is supposedly supplying this food also makes fancy sushi and stuff for private schools really angered me. Come on!
It's beyond appalling. Yes it's good to know they're 'investigating' it now, but it shouldn't have happened in the first place. I also feel bad for the people who work for the company who are terrified of losing their jobs because they need...
Read moreIt’s a real mess!
What is wrong with Britain? This sounds like war-times, but it’s now! 😢
Yeh we're really not doing great at... *gestures at everything*... at the moment...