Dorset school meals menus impacted by cost of living double whammy
There might not be any more cucumber crudités on the menu for a while
A school dinners service in Dorset says its menu is changing because of a cost of living double whammy.
Favourite dishes like cucumber crudités could disappear from menus altogether as one organisation in Dorset is forced to make tough decisions.
Local Food Links provides meals to 54 schools across Dorset but they say rising fuel and food prices could leave Dorset schools worse off.
Very few Dorset schools have their own canteens and Local Food Links fill in the gaps by delivering meals directly too schools, but they have seen not just an increase in food prices, but fuel too.
Caroline Morgan is the CEO of Local Food Links. She says the government's at risk of forgetting about places like Dorset.
"The government has indicated a 7p increase per meal for the infant meals from September 2022. We have asked schools if they can split that increase with us to contribute towards our costs. It isn't enough for us and it isn't enough for schools. The government must do something because families are really finding it hard."
Meals are very carefully priced already, so Caroline says they have had to reconsider parts of their menu.
She added:
"We have guarded our principles so we only use British meat and we only use free range local eggs, so we've kept all of that but we have to very tightly price our meals so we have had to make some changes.
"The portion sizes are the same, the quality is the same, but we've just had to be smart about what accompaniments we add to meals so that it does balance out.
"They the children really like cucumber and they'd like to have cucumber crudités with lots of their meals. Well, actually, cucumber is really quite expensive now so we can't put it on that much as an accompaniment. It's just little things like that that we know the children would really enjoy that actually they might just be a bit too much."