More pupils eat school meals

12:30pm Saturday 11th October 2008

Comments (0)   Have your say »

THE number of children eating school meals in Hampshire is rising after a dramatic fall in the summer of 2005.

Healthier menus along with adverse publicity from TV chef Jamie Oliver made school dinners less popular.

County council figures show the number of hot meals served daily fell from 39,484 in 2004 to 32,858 in 2006 - a 17 per cent decline. But take-up rose to 33,108 last year.

A report presented to the council's property, business and regulatory services select committee on Tuesday, said nearly four out of ten (38 per cent) of pupils ate school meals in 2004, But Jamie Oliver's programme highlighting junk food on the menu brought about "a dramatic reduction in meals numbers, almost overnight."

The report said this, plus a focus on introducing only healthy food to menus, led to a fall in numbers. By 2005, take-up dropped to 31 per cent.

It went on: "However as the whole approach to eating more healthily seems to have been accepted more widely and Hampshire County Council Catering Service (HC3S) is seeing school meal numbers again improving year on year."

Initiatives to spread the healthy eating message include "Cook and Eat" workshops for thousands of pupils and parents at 96 schools over three years.

The six-week programme aims to teach basic cooking skills using revamped school meal recipes.

HC3S provides hot meals for 445 primary schools and 32 secondary schools.

Last year was designated the "Year of Food and Farming in Schools" and the catering service attempted to introduce more local ingredients.

Hampshire-grown organic beef and pork is now on the school menu as well as free range eggs from a Fordingbridge flock of hens.

The price of school meals rose by 10p to £1.90 last April.