July 2010 The report of the School Food Trust and LACA survey on the take-up of school meals 2009-2010 is now available.
The School Food Trust and the Local Authority Caterers’ Association have today published the report on the fifth annual survey of take up, together with the take up statistics (Statistical Release: take up of school lunches in England 2009-2010).
The Statistical release: Take up of school lunches in England 2009-2010 was published on 8 July 2010, and can be viewed here:
www.schoolfoodtrust.org.uk/documents/annualsurvey5/statisticalrelease
The main findings of this report include:
- All 152 local authorities (LAs) in England were approached for information regarding school catering services. Of these, 152 (100%) responded, providing information relating to both LA organized catering services (whether provided directly or contracted on behalf of schools by the LA) and non-LA catering services.
- The response rate and coverage are both sufficiently high 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 94% in the primary † sector and 80% in the secondary sector, making this the most comprehensive picture of take up in England ever reported.
- LA catered or contracted provision accounted for 80%, 39% and 72% of primary, secondary and special school lunch provision, respectively. Percentages for non-LA catering provision were 20%, 61% and 28%, respectively.
- Take up of school lunches was 41.4% in primary schools and 35.8% in secondary schools. This represents an increase over 2008-2009 of 2.1 percentage points in the primary sector and 0.8 percentage points in the secondary sector. This equates to around 100,000 more pupils taking school lunch.
- Average school lunch prices were £1.83 in the LA catered primary sector and £1.94 in the LA catered secondary sector, an increase of 3% on the preceding year in both sectors.
- In the primary sector, 70% of schools had a full production kitchen, 7.5% had facilities for regeneration or a mini-kitchen, 15.8% had hot food transported from another school or venue, and 5.9% had cold food only or FSM only service only. In the secondary sector, 93% had a full production kitchen; less than 1% had cold food or FSM provision only.
- Over 94% of primary and secondary LA catered school lunch provision was thought to be compliant with the food-based standards for school lunches, 93% and 71% respectively with the nutrient-based standards. For non-LA provision, 86% of primary and 78% of secondary schools were thought to be compliant with or “working toward” the food-based standards; and 82% and 73%, respectively, for the nutrient-based.
- Two-thirds of LAs indicated that pupil attitudes to healthier meals in had improved in the primary sector compared with last year, and 34% in the secondary sector. The remainder thought attitudes were about the same, and under 5% in the secondary sector (but none in the primary sector) that attitudes were worse.
Further analyses explore associations between take up and factors in the LA or catering practices relating to school food provision in the majority of LAs, including an exploration of factors associated with changes in take up between 2008-2009 and 2009-2010
The full report and the further analyses can be downloaded below.
† “Primary” refers to primary plus special, unless indicated otherwise.
