An angry mother has tweeted a photo of what she claims is an inadequate food hamper to replace free school meals for her child. In the image, the hamper contains a loaf of bread, a bag of pasta, one can of baked beans, some cheese, three apples, two carrots, one tomato, two baked potatoes, two bananas, two malt loaf snacks and three snack size tubes of fromage frais.
Her image has been shared more than 18,000 times on Twitter - including by footballer Marcus Rashford, who had campaigned to ensure families were supplied with food during lockdown - and who called it "unacceptable". The mother said the parcel had been issued by Chartwells, a private company contracted by the Department for Education, instead of £30 worth of vouchers.
"I could do more with £30 to be honest," she wrote, adding that she estimated the total value of the goods to be £5.22.
Manchester United star Rashford tweeted that he had been in touch with Chartwells and that the firm was having a meeting with the Department for Education today.
He posted that "once food is supplied to the school network, schools have the autonomy over how the hampers are distributed", and that the problem appeared to have been made worse by the latest lockdown. He wrote, "One thing that is clear is that there was very little communication with the suppliers that a national lockdown was coming,"
"We MUST do better. Children shouldn't be going hungry on the basis that we aren't communicating or being transparent with plans. That is unacceptable."
