It’s been a while since we’ve covered the free school meals issue, but is anyone really surprised that a firm with links to the Conservative Party are using a £30 government grant to deliver a basket of food that only cost them £5.22 so that they can keep the profit themselves? Pretty much par for the course now isn’t it?
Featured Image VIA
The food parcels have been brought in to replace the £30 vouchers that were previously handed out to parents to replace school meals as schools close for remote learning. However, several pictures have been appearing online of the parcels that are not only woefully inadequate in terms of the amount of food they’re receiving, but also seem to profiting off the government scheme.
Here are a few of the ones that describe the problem the best, many once again highlighted by Marcus Rashford:
#FreeSchoolMeals bag for 10 days:
2 days jacket potato with beans
8 single cheese sandwiches2 days carrots
3 days apples
2 days soreen
3 days frubesSpare pasta & tomato. Will need mayo for pasta salad.
Issued instead of £30 vouchers. I could do more with £30 to be honest. pic.twitter.com/87LGUTHXEu
— Roadside Mum 🐯 (@RoadsideMum) January 11, 2021
Where is this being rolled out?
If families are entitled to £30 worth of food, why is there delivery only equating to just over £5?! 1 child or 3, this what they are receiving? Unacceptable https://t.co/SNblZ1wl5P— Marcus Rashford MBE (@MarcusRashford) January 11, 2021
Then imagine we expect the children to engage in learning from home. Not to mention the parents who, at times, have to teach them who probably haven’t eaten at all so their children can…
We MUST do better. This is 2021 https://t.co/mEZ6rCA1LE
— Marcus Rashford MBE (@MarcusRashford) January 11, 2021
And another one…😔 pic.twitter.com/hCCFCxC5HL
— Marcus Rashford MBE (@MarcusRashford) January 11, 2021
I mean that really is a disgusting effort from whoever is supposed to be supplying that food parcel isn’t it? The half a pepper is easily the worst part as they only cost about 60p but some bastard is still up there cutting it in half themselves so they can make slightly more money themselves on each package. Why the hell are people like that?
One of the main culprits for these parcels is a company called Chartwells, who are part of the food service giant Compass Group who are owned by Paul Walsh who was once part of David Cameron’s business advisory group. Any surprises there? In fairness to them, they’ve said that they will immediately investigate the situation, but their cause hasn’t exactly been helped by the fact they also operate a service for private schools option called Chartwells Independent which offer up selections of canapés and coconut, lemongrass and banana leaf wrapped salmon for their clients as opposed to the dross that they send to the poor schools. Kinda sums it all up really doesn’t it?
Children’s Minister Vicky Ford and the Department of Education have both said that they will urgently look into the situation as well, but you have to wonder if anything is going to change given the government’s track record. However, Marcus Rashford is one of the few people to go up against this government and manage to get them to concede, so you’ve gotta think there’s a chance on this one, but having said that how dumb do these companies have to be to try something like this in the wake of the outcry that happened last time? I would say it beggars belief but nothing really surprises me anymore in this stupid country.
*I think it should be noted that there are also a bunch of tweets out there highlighting other food parcel companies that are providing families with decent quality parcels that look like they are fulfilling the terms of the contract. It’s possible that the ones highlighted on Twitter aren’t the norm and are outliers themselves, but even so you would think that the suppliers would be doing more to make sure that this doesn’t happen as they’ve already seen how weaponised the subject has been in the past. Not exactly hard to see how this was going to turn out with was it? Taken less than 24 hours for the whole nation to be up in arms.
For more of the same, check out when Matt Hancock called Marcus Rashford ‘Daniel’. That was really weird.
