As inflation, the legacies of the Covid-19 pandemic and state austerity cause lasting disruption to families across the UK, the importance of school meals in providing children with regular access to healthy food has become a matter of national debate. To explore what political controversies over the provision of school meals can tell us about social change in the UK we've been joined by Heather Ellis, a historian at the University of Sheffield.
Together with Gary McCulloch at UCL and Gurpinder Singh Lalli at the University of Wolverhampton, Heather is leading an ESRC-funded project to investigate the policy and social history of the UK's school meal service. With this expertise, Heather can provide much-needed insight into the social impact and policy provision of school meals in the UK.
The background music is by Through the City by Crowander, and the production for this podcast was by Daniel Mansfield.