Jamie Oliver slams government for not supporting school meals reform

Jamie Oliver has slammed the Government for failing to support the reform of school meals he helped to kick off.

In an interview with Channel 4 News, the celebrity chef described the Government’s approach to improving school meals as “slow, painful, unmethodical and badly invested in”.

Oliver defended the efforts of his School Meals campaign insisting his menus were working but that the Government had not kept its promises. He added that he did not think the children were the problem.

The comments came just weeks after Oliver told Caterer he felt the campaign was going as planned – including the problems. He was responding to a series of official reports that showed that uptake of school meals has dropped dramatically since the interim food-based standards came into force last September. 

In last night’s interview Oliver said: "As far as love, care, strategy and most importantly training of our girls [dinner ladies]... nothing. 

“When I saw Tony [Blair] last he promised he would create a fund that would re-build kitchens that are falling down or build them for schools that didn't have them... haven't seen that either."

He added: "The School Food Trust doesn’t have enough money.... and we're not training the dinner ladies quickly enough."

Jamie Oliver says school meals campaign is going as planned >> 

Jamie Oliver effect leads to school meal uptake to lowest ever level >> 

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By Kerstin Kühn

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