Leicestershire County Council to end school meals service

Leicestershire County Council will stop its school meals service next July due to rising costs, according to BBC News.

The local authority runs Leicestershire Traded Services (LTS), which provides catering services to more than 100 schools in the area. The council vowed to help schools to find alternative catering options past the end of the 2025/26 academic year.

The school food service made a loss of £329,000 in 2024-2025, the council said. It was set to make to make £41,000 this financial year, a surplus for the first time since the pandemic, having acquired nine new school catering contracts. However, council chiefs reported a poor long-term outlook.

Richard Hunt, head of catering, hospitality and country parks at Leicester County Council, told BBC News: “Despite our improved financial position, the world of school food is changing rapidly with retendering of services by academy trusts and the desire by schools for an overall cheaper service which LTS cannot provide."

The council also said government funding to pay for Universal Infant Free School Meals (UIFSM) had not kept pace with inflation.

Funding was recently increased to £2.61 per meal in England, but this is still lower than its capital city (£3) and all other home nations, with Northern Ireland at £2.60 per meal and Scotland at £3.30 per meal. Wales has just announced an additional £8m investment over the coming two years, which is set to increase the price spent per meal from £3.20 to £3.40.

School caterer association LACA estimates that with food cost rising about 10%-20% in the last year, a reasonable cost of providing one school meal is now £3.45, far outstripping the average allocated funding across the UK of £2.93.

Its recent research indicated that only 19% of caterers are able to provide a school food compliant meal within the existing £2.61 funding rate in England.

The association’s conference earlier this year was told that school caterers are cutting back on the size, variety or quality of lunches served to children to cope with the funding shortfall.

Leicestershire County Council’s move comes in the wake of education caterer CATERed announcing it will cease trading in 2026 as a result of the “increasingly challenging” financial climate.

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