Government pledges £1.6 million to expand school meals to all Jersey primary schools

Jersey's government has pledged to expand its school meals programme to all public primary schools if £1.6 million funding is approved by States Members.

Politicians will vote on the move as part of the debate on the Government Plan for 2023-24.

The scheme has been trialled in three States-run primary schools since 2019, later expanding to two more.

The money to expand the programme will be used to create new facilities to store and serve the meals, as well as the food itself.

While the government has announced its intention to expand the programme to all its primary schools, it is yet to confirm when the rollout will happen.

The Chief Minister, Deputy Kristina Moore, says the plan shows the government's commitment to supporting children and families:

"The access that children have to healthy food has an impact on their development and their school performance: it is also a key predictor of their health throughout their life.

"This intervention is timely. We know that the cost of living is rising and that there are many families for whom providing healthier options is becoming harder. Alongside the substantial financial support, we announced in the mini-budget, the provision of school meals will provide more options for families."

Education Minister, Deputy Inna Gardiner, says it will be a huge logistical challenge:

"If funding is approved, we will go from providing a few hundred meals a day to several thousand meals a day. This is more than double the number produced by the General Hospital every day, for delivery across the island.

"This is a huge logistical challenge, and I recognise that there is a substantial amount of work needed to make this happen. However, it is absolutely worth doing to ensure that as many children as possible can benefit from healthy meals."