City Catering CEO calls for urgent government response against rising food costs
Last week our CEO, Gary McMahon spoke to BBC Radio Solent in light of the school food crisis and a recent survey published by trade body LACA, which found that more than half of caterers reported a drop in demand for school lunches.
Caterers across the country that were surveyed, raised some alarming concerns that “More pupils in England and Wales are unable to afford school meals”.
Gary speaking on the Alun Newman breakfast show spoke of the worrying concerns of the impeding price increases looming from suppliers:
“Our goal (as a charity) is to make sure children get a well balanced nutritional lunch. Providing school meals for children is statuary requirement and by not funding that exercise properly the government are undermining their statuary goals. School caterers work well in advanced and we usually start planning menus more half a year in advance. We have a really clever food development team who are working on the menu for autumn and winter term. Our worry is that things are going to get worse in autumn and the pressure which is already steadily increasing and all of our suppliers speaking of concerns is that (food cost pressures) being passed down the line to us and that we feel there will be further impacts later in the year.
Gary then gave a rallying call to government for an urgent need to act to ensure families are not having to bare the weight of the rising food costs:
“We need a better more realistic urgent response from government for the country to be able to ensure school meals continue to serve their purpose. And whilst we are determined to hang on as long as we can, we are very concerned at this moment in time”.
You can catch the full interview from Gary by clicking the audio clip below: