Lunchtime Revolt

Jamie Oliver persuades parents to ditch dinners

The number of primary school children taking up school dinners has fallen dramatically across the country. A survey by the BBC, targeting catering contract managers, found that take-up of school dinners is on the decline – dropping up to 12% in some areas in the past year. More than a fifth of respondents blamed Jamie Oliver’s school dinners programme for the sudden drop.

One catering company responded to the survey saying, ‘We have been steadily increasing the amount of freshly cooked food and improving our menus for the last four years, quietly and without a fuss. Meal numbers were going steadily up. Then along came Jamie Oliver and despite all the evidence we have to support our excellent and award winning service, parents [and children who, some as young as eight, watched the series] chose to believe the Jamie Oliver version and are now sending children in with packed lunches, mostly high in fat, sugar and salt.’

Some authorities found that replacing the usual burgers and chips with healthy meals had a knock-on effect on the number of children eating them. In Hull, a radical change to the school menu which introduced fresh food and vegetables led to almost 40% of children dropping school dinners.