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Speaking at the start of LACA’s Main Event in Birmingham yesterday (July 5th), he said that the DfE announcement that Universal Infant Free School Meal (UIFSM) payments would rise from £2.41 to £2.53, while welcome, was still ‘woefully inadequate’.

“That’s a 4.9% rise, as against food price inflation that has hit a 45-year high of 20% this year, and we have seen some product costs rise by up to 60% over the last year.

“Taken together with wage inflation of 10%, product shortages and substitutions, it amounts to the most challenging time for our industry. So we continue the fight, and it’s the reason why we’ve made the theme for this year’s Main Event – ‘If Not Now, When?’.”

He pointed out that a recent Institute of Fiscal Studies report calculated that if funding had kept pace with inflation then the price per meal for UIFSM would be £2.87.

One of the speakers at the LACA Main Event was Dr Katie Wilson who is executive director of the Urban Food Alliance, which contains 18 of the largest districts in America and serves 4.2m school meals a day. She encouraged attendees to share learnings with each other ‘so we can look forward’.

Dr Wilson cited the cost of food and labour, scaling up to feed more children and creating a more sustainable food system as the biggest challenges in 2023 for school meal providers. Stephen Menyhart noted that following the Covid-19 pandemic school chefs and caterers were no longer treated as heroes in Colorado despite their jobs remaining as crucial.

Keynote speaker Chris Bavin said “it would make an incredible difference” if every school in the country introduced gardens where schoolchildren had the opportunity to learn more about food provenance. He encouraged schools to become local food hubs and to introduce seasonal produce onto their menus.

Today (July 6th), the Main Event will feature day two of the School Chef of the Year competition, with the winner announced at the LACA Awards for Excellence gala dinner in the evening.

During the day, Mo Baines, the chief executive of the Association of Public Service Excellence (APSE) will share recent research and findings and discuss why effective education catering should matter to politicians.

And Christine Farquharson from the Institute of Fiscal Studies will look at the options and trade-offs in expanding free school meals in England.

And Julie Rees of Independent Thinking will discuss the essential roles that key values and resilient leadership play in supporting the wellbeing of catering teams, teaching staff and pupils.