Article written by Neil Floyd, Group Commercial Director
I have been in state education contract catering industry for 10 years now. When I joined www.abmcatering.co.uk back in 2015, the Government’s funding for Universal Free School Meals to schools was £2.30 per meal. Today Universal Free School Meal funding is £2.58 per meal. That’s an increase of just 12% over a 10-year period.
In a few weeks’ time, National Minimum Wage increases by 6.7%. This is on the back of successive 9.7%, 9.6% and 8.9% increases in previous years. This is a great boost to all catering and hospitality professionals and ensures that team members who provide such an important service to our nation’s children are remunerated properly and fairly.
Employers’ National Insurance also increases by 1.2% in April 2025 too, but more pertinently the earnings limits on annual salaries for employers to pay national insurance on, drops to £5,000. This is going to be a large burden to schools on the cost of their catering. This is because a much greater proportion of catering teams will now become eligible for national insurance contributions given the part time, term time nature of school’s catering teams
We have all felt the effect of food cost inflation at supermarket tills over the past few years and although annual food inflation peaked in spring 2023 at over 19%, food inflation is still rising at a rate of 7% (source ONS).
The Government clearly recognises the importance of Universal Free School Meals, with the headlines being:
- Boosts attainment and attendance, and increases a child’s lifetime earnings.
- Improves food security and helps families save on food costs.
- Improves diet quality and helps combat childhood obesity, saving the NHS money in the long term
The elephant in the room remains that when Universal Free School Meals is such a key tool in driving learning attainment in schools and reducing childhood obesity, why won’t the Government provide schools with an increase in funding that is proportionate to the food and labour cost increases that we have seen in recent years?
If you work in a school and want to review the efficiency and effectiveness of your catering operations with the leading independent experts in the education contract catering industry, give www.abmcatering.co.uk a call on 01926 498448 or drop us an email at info@abmcatering.co.uk and we’d be delighted to meet with you to discuss your challenges (and if you’re lucky, bring you some yummy brownies).
