Fury at poor-quality food parcels as catering company is drawn into row

Pictures of meagre deliveries of poor-quality food given to disadvantaged families to replace the meals their children would get in school have sparked deep anger on social media.

And now Dolce Catering, which is based in Lowton and has contracts with schools in the borough and across the North West, has been accused by a leading trade union of being one of the firms short-changing families.

Unison North West posted a picture on Twitter of three plastic bags of fruit and vegetables, a pack of spaghetti, two individual fruit pots, a small packet of shortbread biscuits and half a dozen tins.

Its message claimed Dolce expected the amount to feed children for 10 days.

However, Dolce strongly disputed this, saying the photo only shows some of a parcel.

Other Wigan families have been caught up in the row, with one mum posting a picture of mould in a tub of fruit she said was in a parcel she picked up from her son’s high school.

Another mum posted an image of a rather scanty-looking selection including barmcakes, a single packet of ready salted crisps, a carton of milk, potatoes and a lone apple.

She posted on Wigan Today’s Facebook page: “This is what I got. Crisp barm anyone? Pasta and milk for dinner?

“Sure school drills it into kids about healthy eating 1 Apple for a week so I have to divide the apple into 5 days.”

Unison North West schools lead Keith Bradley said: “It’s clear that Dolce’s generously-named school meal ‘hampers’ are completely inadequate.

“Unison remains concerned that schools are already paying Dolce to provide school meals and yet they are now being charged again to pay for these unacceptably paltry school meal boxes.

“The school meal box scandal has shone a light on what has been clear for some time- the privatised school meal system does not benefit children, school catering staff, schools or tax payers.

“We are also concerned that many private companies appear to be using the pandemic as an excuse to profit from our public services. It’s time to bring school catering back in-house.”

However, Dolce owner and director Adam Curtis said: “We have opted to provide our hampers as a not-for-profit service, offering lunches each day to those that are homeschooling. They include a nutritionally-balanced lunch for every day of the school week and we also include recipe cards to make it more educational and enjoyable.

“We very much welcome the Government’s announcement of an increase in the school meal hamper subsidy (from £11.50 to £15), which is being rolled out by school catering providers across the country.

“While food hampers aren’t comparable to supermarket vouchers, due to wholesale prices and the associated costs of running a school kitchen, they are created to comply with the Government’s nutritional guidelines for five and 10 days’ worth of lunches for a primary school pupil.”

Schools are able to enter contracts with catering providers individually and make their own decisions about free school meals and the packages being delivered while most pupils are studying remotely.

Some Wiganers wrote on Wigan Today’s Facebook page that they had received much better food parcels than the ones which have grabbed national attention.

Estimates have been made that some parcels shared on social media contained just £5 of food, a fraction of the value of the vouchers parents have previously received.

Red-faced ministers have had to admit some parcels are unacceptable, while the Government dropped a policy saying schools should opt for food parcels first on Wednesday.

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