Schools are having to make up shortfalls in Government funding to provide free school meals to their pupils, a leading industry body has said.
Caterers for the schools are also being forced to cut portions, reduce menu variety or use lower-quality ingredients as a result of the underfunding, a new survey has found.
It comes after the Government recently announced plans to expand free schools meals to 500,000 more children from next autumn.
Michael Hales, the incoming chair of LACA – The School Food People, which represents members who work in the school food sector, said schools were increasingly having to bridge the gap between Government funding for free school meals and the cost of delivering dinner for all of their pupils, the BBC reported.
The current funding rate for free schools meals in England is £2.61 per meal, compared to £3.20 in Wales and £3.00 in London, according to a new LACA survey.
Almost of half of the caterers surveyed (47%) said sizeable ingredient costs had forced them to make adjustments to their products, including changing recipes (88%), using cheaper protein sources (62%) and having reduced menu options (56%).
The survey also found the price of a paid-for school meal had risen by more than 20% in the last five years.
Some local authorities have warned they could withdraw school meal services altogether due to untenable catering conditions with staff under increasing strain, LACA said.
Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson announced last month that free school meals would be expanded to all pupils in England from families on universal credit from September next year, but some MPs raised concerns about how this would be paid for.
Currently, households in England on universal credit must earn below £7,400 a year (after tax and not including benefits) to qualify for free school meals.
More than one in four pupils in England are now eligible for the meals, the equivalent of 2.17 million children, the latest figures from the Department for Education (DfE) show.
Children in Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 in England are all eligible for free school meals regardless of household income.
LACA said it welcomed the free school meals expansion but warned it could “stretch the system too thin” without improved funding.
It recommended that the Government should raise the funding to at least £3.45 per meal with index-linking to match inflation, and to ringfence the funding so it is not diverted elsewhere in school budgets.
Paul Whiteman, general secretary at school leaders’ union NAHT, said: “The disappointing 3p increase in funding per free school meal from September will still leave many schools having to subsidise free school meals from budgets already seriously stretched after years of real-terms funding cuts under previous governments.
“School Food Matters, which runs food education programmes in schools, has estimated that it now costs £3.16 to provide a hot meal.
“Suppliers sometimes pass on increased costs of producing meals and school leaders are caught between a rock and a hard place. They don’t want to compromise on the quality of food provided, but that may mean having to cut spending on other things which may affect children’s learning.
“We urge the Government to look carefully at the actual costs of providing meals and make sure these are fully covered in the funding schools receive.”
