‘Bin bags full of food wasted in schools as pupils go hungry’
A COUNCIL has heard concerns about school children going hungry because portion sizes are too small, while huge amounts of food are wasted because smaller children don’t touch spicy items on school lunch menus.
Bridgend councillors visited schools as part of a scrutiny inquiry into the impact of the Welsh Government’s universal primary free school meals offer, which is having an impact on school budgets and catering services.
Officers also told members how the cost of providing a primary school meal as of 2022-23 was up by almost 20% due to inflation, at £3.69, with the Welsh Government only covering £2.90 of the universal scheme.
Cllr Amanda Williams of Coity Higher visited three of the schools recently to gain feedback from pupils and staff, and said she also had concerns over portion sizes given to pupils, with higher age groups going hungry as they were not getting enough, while lower age groups wasted portions that were too large.
She said: “I spoke to a member of staff who said it’s breaking staff’s hearts to see children going hungry, because some of the older children are saying they’re still hungry.”
Yet she said she “witnessed bin bags full of food being wasted in each school because children are not eating it”. She said other children were “not eating the food that’s being offered to them”.
The report highlighted how Welsh Government expected that all primary school-age pupils across Wales would be able to get a free school meal by September 2024, though noted that each local authority had been allowed to decide on its own delivery plan depending on their circumstances.
Wastage of food was discussed at length in the meeting with a budget allowance of £49,000 given by the council to deal with school waste, which is currently expected to come in overspent with a total cost of around £60,000.
It was described how staff feared that this could become a further issue in the coming years, with legal requirements to separate waste coming in from Welsh Government in 2024, with a ban on sending food waste to landfills or incinerators expected to create “significant additional costs.”
Headteachers felt the increased amount of waste could be a result of menu choices now that more children were taking up the offer of a free meal, with examples given where two spicy options were served on the same day, and another where a vegan curry was eaten by one child with the rest thrown away.
While the quality of food served in schools was said to be good, they agreed they had noticed an increase in food waste since the roll-out of the scheme began last year, with staff unable to control how much of the food was being left over.
Christopher Jones who is the head of Llangynwyd Primary said: “I think it could be a little bit of tweaking with the menu so we’re not having similar spiced foods on the same day could alleviate some of the waste that we are seeing.”
Members were reminded that the local authority could not independently review its own portion sizes, though said they would continue to put pressure on relevant organisations to make sure portion sizes were an adequate size for the age of the child.
Other issues that were discussed in the report included staffing shortages, with 129 vacancies in the service still not filled in primary schools, along with an additional 19 vacancies that were unfilled in secondary schools.