November 2009 The final version of the School Food Trust and LACA survey on the take-up of school meals 2008/09 is now available.
The School Food Trust and the Local Authority Caterers’ Association have today published the final report on the fourth annual survey take up statistics (Statistical Release: NI 52 – take up of school lunches in England 2008-2009) – the most comprehensive national picture of take up ever reported.
The school lunch take up results were published in July 2009, and can be viewed here www.schoolfoodtrust.org.uk/documents/NI52statisticalrelease2008-2009.
The main findings of this report include:
- All 150 local authorities (LAs) in England were approached for information regarding school catering services. Of these, 150 (100%) responded, providing information related to both LA organized catering services (whether provided directly or contracted on behalf of schools in the LA) and non-LA catering services.
- The response rate is sufficiently high, and findings are in sufficiently good agreement with other nationally collected data, to be confident that the findings presented in this report are representative of Local Authority organized school meal provision in England. The coverage relating to take up of school lunches is over 90% of primary schools and 73% of secondary schools, making this the most comprehensive picture of take up in England ever reported.
- LA catered or contracted provision accounted for 80%, 41% and 70% of primary, secondary and special school lunch provision, respectively, the remaining 20%, 59% and 30% being provided privately or in-school.
- Take up of school lunches was 39.3% in primary schools and 35.0% in secondary schools.
- Average school lunch prices were £1.77 in the LA catered primary sector and £1.88 in the LA catered secondary sector, each up 6% on the preceding year.
- In primary schools, 75% had a full production kitchen, 6.5% had facilities for regeneration or a mini-kitchen, 13.5% had food transported from another school or venue. 3% of primary schools had cold food only or FSM only service, compared with 5% reported in 2007-2008. In secondary schools, 94% had full production kitchens.
- As of March 2009, 94% of primary and 35% of secondary LA catered school lunch provision was thought by respondents to be compliant with the final food-based and nutrient-based standards for school lunches. This was an encouraging result considering secondary schools did not have to comply with the nutrient-based standards until September 2009.
- 64% of LAs indicated that they thought attitudes towards healthier school meals in primary schools had improved in the last year, 36% thought they were about the same, and none thought that primary pupils’ attitudes were worse. For the secondary sector, 25% of LAs thought attitudes had improved, 60% had remained about the same, and 15% thought that attitudes were worse.
The further analyses explore associations between take up and factors in the LA or catering practices relating to school food provision. In a subset of about 80 LAs, it was also possible to explore factors associated with changes in take up between 2007-2008 and 2008-2009.
The full report and the further analyses can be downloaded here.
