Our Catering provider (Entrust) are changing their school meals service from Chartwells to Edwards and Ward. This will involve no change in catering staffing in school; however, there is going to be a change in price. Here is some information from Entrust explaining this:
Due to food and wage inflation continuing to affect the catering industry, the meal price when we return in September will be £2.83.
The contractor, Edwards and Ward has done what it can to mitigate the effect of food inflation whilst producing school meals to the governments school food standards. This has included product swapping raw materials and changing menu choices, but food inflation stubbornly continues, above published headline rates of RPI & CPI.
While the governments headline inflation rate has dipped in recent months, the food price inflation for May 2023 is 18.3%, with specific food type increases of 27.4% for milk, cheese & eggs, 19.8% for vegetables and 16.3% for meat, all of which are fundamental raw materials used in school catering. Added to the food inflation affect, the government mandated increase of 9.7% national minimum wage increase from April 1st this year and the impact of the Harpur Trust court ruling, also has directly impacted the school meal price.
The caterer expects no further price increase until at least April 2024 and will continue to monitor inflationary effects each month and are committed to investing in different ways to minimise these effects.
Thank you for your understanding.
