Photos of 'meagre' food parcels given to families in replacement of free school meals caused uproar after they were shared by parents online.
Parcels are given instead of £15-a-week vouchers for those children who are entitled to the benefit.
And the uproar was sparked by @RoadsideMum on Twitter, who shared a photo of her parcel, which she claimed was given in lieu of a fortnight's worth of supermarket vouchers, but was estimated to be worth around £5.
Despondent parents soon began posting photos of their food parcels on social media - with some expected to last five days and others 10.
Some contained barely enough food to last one or two days, with small bags of dried pasta, and even half a pepper and tomato included in the offering.
Chartwells, the company behind the controversial parcel, said it had investigated and the photo from @RoadsideMum showed five days worth of food and the charge for food, packing and distribution was actually £10.50 and not £30 as suggested.
But it apologised for the standard of the package, saying that 'in our efforts to provide thousands of food parcels a week at extremely short notice we are very sorry the quantity has fallen short in this instance'.
The Manchester Evening News went shopping at Aldi to see what we could buy for £25.
We took off £5 from the £30 parents are given per fortnight, to account for overheads such as storage, transport, and staffing costs.
What we came back with - for a total of £24.84 - was enough food to easily put together a menu of ten days’ worth of lunches, with money to spare for milk, squash, and snacks.
The menu includes fruit and veg, cold meat, cheese, beans, bread, pasta and treats.
Education secretary Gavin Williamson has since announced that schools will be able to replace the dismal free school meal hampers with vouchers from Monday.
Williamson confirmed that schools may continue to use local services if they wish, but that the government scheme will return next week.
Instead of hampers, parents will receive £15 vouchers that they can use in supermarkets to purchase one week's worth of food.
The anger has drawn the attention of Manchester United player and activist Marcus Rashford.
Posting on his social media, he expressed satisfaction at the progress being made in talks with the government. He tweeted: “Just had a good conversation with the Prime Minister.
"He has assured me that he is committed to correcting the issue with the food hampers and that a full review of the supply chain is taking place. He agrees that images of hampers being shared on Twitter are unacceptable.”
With the option of the voucher scheme now available, hopefully these images will be a thing of the past.
Here is our 10-day lunch menu in full:
Day 1: Turkey sandwich with mayo, a banana, carrot sticks, rice pudding
Day 2: Jacket potato with turkey, butter, and mayo, an apple, rice pudding
Day 3: Ham sandwich, an apple, celery sticks, granola bar
Day 4: Tomato soup and a roll, carrot sticks, tangerine, granola bar
Day 5: Pasta with tomato sauce and vegetables, apple, granola bar
Day 6: Jacket potato with cheese, celery stick, tangerine, granola bar
Day 7: Carrot and coriander soup and a roll, carrot sticks, a banana, granola bar
Day 8: Jacket potato with beans, carrot sticks, banana, rice pudding
Day 9: Beans on toast, carrot sticks, tangerine, granola bar
Day 10: Fish and chips with mushy peas and carrots, apple, chocolate muffin
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