>Ali is a self-employed wholesaler. He mainly buys fruit and vegetables in bulk before selling them on – but there is a limit to what small local shops are prepared to pay, so as costs rise his profits decrease.
>Against a wall downstairs are stacked multipacks of toilet roll, from which he expects to make only 20p each – even less after petrol costs – while the cost of the family’s weekly grocery shop has almost doubled.
>It means they can only afford to buy school lunch for Alishah once, or sometimes twice, a week. Each meal at her school, Dixons Marchbank Primary, costs £2.10.
>Prof Susan Jebb, the chairwoman of the Food Standards Agency (FSA), is also a leading expert on nutrition. Speaking exclusively to the BBC, she said it was crucial right now that parents were confident the school lunch was worth the money.
>”I am worried that the cost-of-living crisis risks turning into a public health crisis,” Prof Jebb said.
>”There is an opportunity in schools to at least protect children from the worst of that by ensuring that the food they have in schools is healthy and nutritious.”
>All state school pupils in Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 can have free school meals during term time in England, but only [the very lowest income families get free school meals for older children.](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/54693906) As Alishah is in Year 3, her parents must pay.
>As Simran prepares pasta and a salad for Alishah’s evening meal, she says she wishes they could afford more frequent school lunches, as sometimes Alishah does not eat her packed lunch of cold leftovers.
>**In regular FSA surveys, 30% of adults report missing a meal, or eating less because of cost, up from 22% in March. Some are also turning off their fridges to save money.**
>This all suggests families have less to spend on food at home, making school meals all the more crucial for children.
Ali needs to get another job then. Or just make her sandwiches.
>…the things we would like to see, such as yoghurts and cheese and fruit.”
Why are yoghurts and cheese the things they would like to see?
Often home cooked leftovers will be much healthier than sandwiches or other packed lunch standards.
Ali needs to realize that his job is not his identity and get another role. It’s an employee market with unemployment at 40 year record lows and staff shortages and rising wages in almost every single sector. He has some unique skills that would do well in retail sector as a buyer.
Parents with incomes of £50k and the other earning anything up to £50k (joint £100k) can benefit from £150 a month childcare payments up to 18 years old, 30 hours free nursery for 3 year olds and free dinners for reception etc.
Forgive me if I’m wrong,for 2kids in a household that’s
£195 nursery fees each week for your 3 year old
£12.5 school dinners. For your 5 year old
£40 a week for both kids in child payments each week.
£250 a week given out to people earning up to £1k a week each.
They need to get in touch with Ashfield MP Lee Anderson. He can teach people how to live on 30p a day
> while the cost of the family’s weekly grocery shop has almost doubled
How? Food hasn’t doubled.
Actually paying for school meals always seemed mental to me. They’re extortionate for shite food. You can have a decent, healthy, packed lunch for far less.
Why aren’t healthy school meals free to all … big supermarkets should provide quality ingredients to make healthy food … encourage kids into healthy life choices when older … big supermarkets make billions each year … ditto energy providers
Provide at cost or for free … profit or people / community …
Giving every schoolchild, regardless of income, a hot lunch, would cost this country a pittance compared with other expenditure.
As long as we choose not to do this, it’s a stain on the whole of our society.
Self-employed fruit and veg wholesaler. Here’s a suggestion, instead of just being the middle-man, set-up a some sort of foodbox direct to the door delivery service or a fancy looking market stall in the Yorkshire ‘golden triangle’.
It literally says in the article that mum makes extra of dinner to send her to school with. The daughter just isn’t eating it
This isn’t an issue with not having time or money, it’s an issue with parenting. If their daughter won’t eat the lunch they provide because she’d rather have school lunches they need to explain that it isn’t possible.
I never had school lunches growing up, if I didn’t eat my packed lunch my mum checked in that it wasn’t because it wasn’t something I didn’t like but if I’d said its because I want a school lunch she wouldn’t have been happy! She definitely wouldn’t have called a newspaper to try to shift the blame away from me being fussy!
I have zero doubt that some families are struggling to feed their kids, but this family isn’t one of them and if they are there’s plenty they could do to improve their situation. And if they were struggling there is plenty of support out their for low income families
Daughter is picky and refuses to eat lunch isn’t a news story
>Each meal at her school, Dixons Marchbank Primary, costs £2.10.
Wonder what the company that makes them spends
*As Simran prepares pasta and a salad for Alishah’s evening meal, she says she wishes they could afford more frequent school lunches, as sometimes Alishah does not eat her packed lunch of cold leftovers.*
*Alishah always has a hot school lunch on a Friday – pizza and chips day at Dixons*
I can’t help but think the headline is misleading in this case. Their daughter is picking school pizza over cold packed lunch, that’s more of a child issue than costs issue.
There are kids whose families can’t afford proper food and rely on School dinners for their children, but it doesn’t read like that’s the case with this family.
The amount of money it’d cost to offer every kid a hot meal at school is so little in the grand scheme of things that there’s no excuse for the country to embarrass itself like this.
I don’t get why we don’t just feed every school kid a lunch as part of the school day.
Is it just prohibitively expensive?
We complain on this subreddit about the state of the UK, and our abhorrent treatment of those less fortunate than us, but when we’re presented with 1 sample of a family struggling to make ends meet we tear into them? Why is that?
I understand the critique about the girl being a fussy eater, and looking at her peers eating a hot school lunch whilst she has leftovers from the night before… but the family shouldn’t be in the position where they can’t buy dedicated nutritious food for the packed lunch of their child – not scraps from last nights dinner.
Reflect on why this family in particular is receiving so much criticism, had this been a white working class family would the commenters have nitpicked every facet of these peoples lives?
I’m seeing commenters tell the father how he should be doing his job, how other wholesale food distributors are in fact very wealthy where they live – this is an impoverished part of the UK – Bradford, not a farmers market in the carpark of Waitrose down in the South East.
I don’t believe it’s unreasonable for all children in compulsory education to receive the option of a free hot meal or cold lunch option.
I will get a lot of hate here, but why he is the only one that is working. I looked for jobs in Bradford requiring no previous experience and there are quite a few.
The situation is tragic, the Tory incompetence over the last 12 years has been and is infuriating, the standard of living of the poorest is horrible.
But, the people in the article might not be a good example, they should both try to find a job, at no point in the article has anyone mentioned job opportunities, training opportunities, they just mentioned that they can’t feed their kid.
I am for help, but just like you help someone up, when they try to to get up, but if the ones up are the only ones pulling then it becomes impossible.
A wholesaler?
Give your daughter a proper packed lunch instead of leftovers?
Simran could get a job too, a few hours a day for a few days…
As a kid pretty sure I wouldn’t want my headshot at the top of this article.
I believe every school child should have free meals, but this is an absolute non story.
>she says she wishes they could afford more frequent school lunches, as sometimes Alishah does not eat her packed lunch of cold leftovers.
This is a literal first world problem. The child is going through a fussy phase, haven’t we all, and nothing else.
It says in the article that the daughter just prefers the school lunch to what her mum makes. Why are they going to the paper about it lol
Couple of things, dad, get a new job. He obviously has work ethic but it’s being wasted in a saturated area (especially in Bradford with lots of Pakistani/Bangladeshi families in this business) where profit margins are thin. And teach your daughter to actually accept the food she’s given.
That said, school meals should be part of school regardless of being a low or a high earner. The actual costs (not what they are charging) are very very low and it lets everyone eat together without excluding any particular group. When I was in primary school in late 90s it was £10 for the week I believe and my mum worked a few hours part time and my dad was always working so unlike most the people at my school who’s parents didn’t work and got free meals mine had to pay despite us being pretty poor anyway.
So I went home everyday and made my own sandwiches (fuck knows why I didn’t eat them in school, maybe I was the odd one out not eating school food and people comment on that), I even remember having a school milk taken off of me by a teacher when I was 5 because my family hadn’t paid… thinking of it that’s one of my first memories and not a very nice one so I understand what it’s like, not being the same as everyone else can negatively impact you for a long time even in something this basic.
24 comments
>Ali is a self-employed wholesaler. He mainly buys fruit and vegetables in bulk before selling them on – but there is a limit to what small local shops are prepared to pay, so as costs rise his profits decrease.
>Against a wall downstairs are stacked multipacks of toilet roll, from which he expects to make only 20p each – even less after petrol costs – while the cost of the family’s weekly grocery shop has almost doubled.
>It means they can only afford to buy school lunch for Alishah once, or sometimes twice, a week. Each meal at her school, Dixons Marchbank Primary, costs £2.10.
>Prof Susan Jebb, the chairwoman of the Food Standards Agency (FSA), is also a leading expert on nutrition. Speaking exclusively to the BBC, she said it was crucial right now that parents were confident the school lunch was worth the money.
>”I am worried that the cost-of-living crisis risks turning into a public health crisis,” Prof Jebb said.
>”There is an opportunity in schools to at least protect children from the worst of that by ensuring that the food they have in schools is healthy and nutritious.”
>All state school pupils in Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 can have free school meals during term time in England, but only [the very lowest income families get free school meals for older children.](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/54693906) As Alishah is in Year 3, her parents must pay.
>As Simran prepares pasta and a salad for Alishah’s evening meal, she says she wishes they could afford more frequent school lunches, as sometimes Alishah does not eat her packed lunch of cold leftovers.
>**In regular FSA surveys, 30% of adults report missing a meal, or eating less because of cost, up from 22% in March. Some are also turning off their fridges to save money.**
>This all suggests families have less to spend on food at home, making school meals all the more crucial for children.
Ali needs to get another job then. Or just make her sandwiches.
>…the things we would like to see, such as yoghurts and cheese and fruit.”
Why are yoghurts and cheese the things they would like to see?
Often home cooked leftovers will be much healthier than sandwiches or other packed lunch standards.
Ali needs to realize that his job is not his identity and get another role. It’s an employee market with unemployment at 40 year record lows and staff shortages and rising wages in almost every single sector. He has some unique skills that would do well in retail sector as a buyer.
Parents with incomes of £50k and the other earning anything up to £50k (joint £100k) can benefit from £150 a month childcare payments up to 18 years old, 30 hours free nursery for 3 year olds and free dinners for reception etc.
Forgive me if I’m wrong,for 2kids in a household that’s
£195 nursery fees each week for your 3 year old
£12.5 school dinners. For your 5 year old
£40 a week for both kids in child payments each week.
£250 a week given out to people earning up to £1k a week each.
They need to get in touch with Ashfield MP Lee Anderson. He can teach people how to live on 30p a day
> while the cost of the family’s weekly grocery shop has almost doubled
How? Food hasn’t doubled.
Actually paying for school meals always seemed mental to me. They’re extortionate for shite food. You can have a decent, healthy, packed lunch for far less.
Why aren’t healthy school meals free to all … big supermarkets should provide quality ingredients to make healthy food … encourage kids into healthy life choices when older … big supermarkets make billions each year … ditto energy providers
Provide at cost or for free … profit or people / community …
Giving every schoolchild, regardless of income, a hot lunch, would cost this country a pittance compared with other expenditure.
As long as we choose not to do this, it’s a stain on the whole of our society.
Self-employed fruit and veg wholesaler. Here’s a suggestion, instead of just being the middle-man, set-up a some sort of foodbox direct to the door delivery service or a fancy looking market stall in the Yorkshire ‘golden triangle’.
It literally says in the article that mum makes extra of dinner to send her to school with. The daughter just isn’t eating it
This isn’t an issue with not having time or money, it’s an issue with parenting. If their daughter won’t eat the lunch they provide because she’d rather have school lunches they need to explain that it isn’t possible.
I never had school lunches growing up, if I didn’t eat my packed lunch my mum checked in that it wasn’t because it wasn’t something I didn’t like but if I’d said its because I want a school lunch she wouldn’t have been happy! She definitely wouldn’t have called a newspaper to try to shift the blame away from me being fussy!
I have zero doubt that some families are struggling to feed their kids, but this family isn’t one of them and if they are there’s plenty they could do to improve their situation. And if they were struggling there is plenty of support out their for low income families
Daughter is picky and refuses to eat lunch isn’t a news story
>Each meal at her school, Dixons Marchbank Primary, costs £2.10.
Wonder what the company that makes them spends
*As Simran prepares pasta and a salad for Alishah’s evening meal, she says she wishes they could afford more frequent school lunches, as sometimes Alishah does not eat her packed lunch of cold leftovers.*
*Alishah always has a hot school lunch on a Friday – pizza and chips day at Dixons*
I can’t help but think the headline is misleading in this case. Their daughter is picking school pizza over cold packed lunch, that’s more of a child issue than costs issue.
There are kids whose families can’t afford proper food and rely on School dinners for their children, but it doesn’t read like that’s the case with this family.
The amount of money it’d cost to offer every kid a hot meal at school is so little in the grand scheme of things that there’s no excuse for the country to embarrass itself like this.
I don’t get why we don’t just feed every school kid a lunch as part of the school day.
Is it just prohibitively expensive?
We complain on this subreddit about the state of the UK, and our abhorrent treatment of those less fortunate than us, but when we’re presented with 1 sample of a family struggling to make ends meet we tear into them? Why is that?
I understand the critique about the girl being a fussy eater, and looking at her peers eating a hot school lunch whilst she has leftovers from the night before… but the family shouldn’t be in the position where they can’t buy dedicated nutritious food for the packed lunch of their child – not scraps from last nights dinner.
Reflect on why this family in particular is receiving so much criticism, had this been a white working class family would the commenters have nitpicked every facet of these peoples lives?
I’m seeing commenters tell the father how he should be doing his job, how other wholesale food distributors are in fact very wealthy where they live – this is an impoverished part of the UK – Bradford, not a farmers market in the carpark of Waitrose down in the South East.
I don’t believe it’s unreasonable for all children in compulsory education to receive the option of a free hot meal or cold lunch option.
I will get a lot of hate here, but why he is the only one that is working. I looked for jobs in Bradford requiring no previous experience and there are quite a few.
The situation is tragic, the Tory incompetence over the last 12 years has been and is infuriating, the standard of living of the poorest is horrible.
But, the people in the article might not be a good example, they should both try to find a job, at no point in the article has anyone mentioned job opportunities, training opportunities, they just mentioned that they can’t feed their kid.
I am for help, but just like you help someone up, when they try to to get up, but if the ones up are the only ones pulling then it becomes impossible.
A wholesaler?
Give your daughter a proper packed lunch instead of leftovers?
Simran could get a job too, a few hours a day for a few days…
As a kid pretty sure I wouldn’t want my headshot at the top of this article.
I believe every school child should have free meals, but this is an absolute non story.
>she says she wishes they could afford more frequent school lunches, as sometimes Alishah does not eat her packed lunch of cold leftovers.
This is a literal first world problem. The child is going through a fussy phase, haven’t we all, and nothing else.
It says in the article that the daughter just prefers the school lunch to what her mum makes. Why are they going to the paper about it lol
Couple of things, dad, get a new job. He obviously has work ethic but it’s being wasted in a saturated area (especially in Bradford with lots of Pakistani/Bangladeshi families in this business) where profit margins are thin. And teach your daughter to actually accept the food she’s given.
That said, school meals should be part of school regardless of being a low or a high earner. The actual costs (not what they are charging) are very very low and it lets everyone eat together without excluding any particular group. When I was in primary school in late 90s it was £10 for the week I believe and my mum worked a few hours part time and my dad was always working so unlike most the people at my school who’s parents didn’t work and got free meals mine had to pay despite us being pretty poor anyway.
So I went home everyday and made my own sandwiches (fuck knows why I didn’t eat them in school, maybe I was the odd one out not eating school food and people comment on that), I even remember having a school milk taken off of me by a teacher when I was 5 because my family hadn’t paid… thinking of it that’s one of my first memories and not a very nice one so I understand what it’s like, not being the same as everyone else can negatively impact you for a long time even in something this basic.