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In an exclusive interview in the July issue of Cost Sector Catering, Jamie Oliver says that “school meals matter – more than ever”.

Despite the prospect of school meal price rises, Jamie also believes they are still good value. He says: "The most important thing as a parent, and I am sure this is the same for any parent, is that my child's meal is nutritious and value for money".

Jamie gives his verdict on the school meals state of play in 2011, six years since he took on the challenge of campaigning for improvements in the funding and quality of school meals.

His remarks are also carried in the latest issue of the School Caterer magazine, produced by LACA (Local Authority Caterers' Association), and come just ahead of the organisation's Annual National Conference, LACA 2011, which is being held in Birmingham starting today and continuing on Thursday 7 and Friday 8 July.

Among Jamie Oliver's many views and opinions contained in full in the July issue of Cost Sector Catering, he believes "it would be tragic to turn back now, and we simply can't afford the spiraling costs of obesity and diet-related diseases".

He states that "regardless of the national price increases across the board, when you think about the price of a hot nutritious meal in comparison to a pint of beer, a cappuccino or a packet of fags, that's going to put the priority of feeding your child into perspective for most parents."

He also points out that "the decision not to ring-fence the School Lunch Grant is a problem" and that was why he "fought and fought to have the money ring-fenced".
As to his thoughts about those who provide school meals service, he comments that "school caterers do a cracking job" and he believes that "many restaurant chefs should be in awe of what they are able to achieve with such limited resources".

On a final note, his message to everyone helping to deliver school meals is "thank you for the hard work over the last few years" and "I'm always on your side, and am consistently humbled by what you do".

The publication of this interview on the subject of school meals also comes just before the announcement tomorrow of the findings of the joint LACA & School Food Trust (SFT) Survey of School Lunch Take Up 2010 – 2011.

Commenting on Jamie Oliver's views, Sandra Russell, chair of LACA says: "We are pleased to hear of Jamie's continued commitment to school meals. With Jamie adding his words of warning about allowing the school meals service to drift backwards now, as a result of Local Authority austerity measures, it is of paramount importance to ensure that those in power listen.

"With Jamie pointing out that for many pupils, the school meal represents both breakfast and lunch on 190 days of the year from 5 – 18 years of age, it illustrates clearly the important contribution they make to improving the diets and eating habits of millions of children and young people.

As Jamie also rightly says, we cannot as a nation allow obesity to continue to spiral out of control nor can the NHS continue to afford the ever increasing cost of diet related diseases.

"Schools are the seat of learning and that is where, through a whole-school approach to healthy eating, important nutritional knowledge can be gained as well as essential life skills learned. What is learnt in the classroom should be applied equally in the dining room and with poor dietary habits and obesity at crisis point, why shouldn't the school lunch be more officially recognized as the 9th lesson of the day?

"LACA members across the country have risen to the enormous challenges facing school catering over this and previous years so we hope this effort will have paid off and that the 2010–2011 LACA & SFT School Meals Survey will show encouraging signs of primary school meal numbers rising.

"Going forward, we all have to work hard to ensure that the School Lunch Grant gets channeled towards school meal provision and that catering does not slip off Head Teachers' radar.

"This is vital to ensure school meals remain high quality, nutritious and as affordable as possible for parents.

"The other major issue facing us is the potential 'fragmentation' of the school meals service.

"With Local Authorities looking for ways to cut expenditure and possibly considering the outsourcing of their services in the future, some school meals may well be supplied by organizations with limited school catering experience or by individual schools managing their own school catering for the first time.

"Without the significant buying power of the larger, centrally managed school meal provider organisations (both public and private sector) which enable economies of scale, it is likely that such decisions could have a negative effect on meal quality, the effective delivery of the Government's stringent Nutritional Standard regulations for school food and also school meal prices."