Many families are sending their children to school with packed lunches this term, as school meals become more unaffordable during the cost of living crisis. With school meals costing £2.20 in Newcastle and £2.25 in Durham, unless your child qualifies for free school meals, then it's almost always cheaper to make your own child's lunch.
Chroniclelive's sister site the Manchester Evening News, decided to put costs to the test, and headed out to the six main supermarkets to see which is cheapest for making your own lunchbox. The Manchester Family opted for standard products rather than budget, and the plan was to make a standard lunchbox of a ham sandwich, a tube yoghurt, a packet of crisps and a Royal Gala apple for a little as possible.
Asda, Morrisons, Sainsbury's, Tesco, Aldi and Lidl were all visited, and overall, Aldi came out as cheapest, at 74.5p for the entire lunchbox, which consisted of two pieces of bread, 40g (four slices) of ham and 6g of margarine to make the sandwich, the yoghurt, crisps and apple.
Lidl wasn't far behind, at 78.3p, followed by Asda at 87.5p and Tesco at 93.4p. The most expensive were Morrisons at 95.5p and Sainsbury's at 97.7p. But while the lunchbox was undoubtedly good value, some parents flagged up a big problem - their kids would not be allowed to take it to school.
Healthy eating policies in schools mean that treats such as crisps are often banned because of the high levels of salt and fat they contain. They say the crisps in particular, from the other supermarkets as well as Aldi, would be banned in their child's school because of the high levels of fat and salt.
Commenting on the article on the M.E.N's Facebook page, Michelle Clarke said: "Some of these won't be allowed in my child's lunch box by the school."
And she wasn't the only one to raise the issue. "Whose lunch box is that?" said Charmaine Fallon. "Some school state healthy eating only, which included baked crisp only!" Another said her child's school had banned crisps because 'they take too long to eat' and one dad said his child's school had banned sweets, cakes, muffins and crisps from lunchboxes, yet gave pupils sweets as a reward.
School food standards for school meals apply to all state schools as well as academies founded before 2010 and after June 2014. The standard was introduced to ensure children have healthy, balanced diets, and many schools have extended the policy to include lunch boxes by issuing guidelines to parents about what is acceptable for children to bring from home.
The school food standards do not permit crisps, chocolate or sweets in school meals and vending machines and ban more than two portions of deep-fried, battered or breaded food a week.
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