What boils my piss about all this is how they use the argument that if they give the money to the families then they won't spend it on the food (some of them might waste it on heating or something frivolous like that) but then the outsourced company spends a fiver and pockets the £25 change.
Yes there will be families where the money doesn't go to the right place, but they are the families who the system needs to identify in order to help the child who is likely in a particularly vulnerable position. They should not simply be a stick to beat poor families with.
To quote the ITV article on one of the firm's profiting of poverty:
The firm's website says their £23 food hamper for two weeks contains a block of cheese, 14 portions of fruit, 16 portions of vegetables, a kilogram bag of penne pasta, four chopped tomato tins, two tins of tuna, one loaf of bread and nine healthy snacks.
Here is a shopping list I have just come up with that should cover the basics that they seem to pretend to (using Asda prices so not bought in bulk which means you would expect it to be more expensive)
4x Reduced Salt Baked Beans Tins - 96p
Medium Wholemeal Bread - 49p
10 Mild Cheddar Cheese Slices - £1.65
4x Tuna in Springwater - £2.69
500g Carrots - 29p
500g Apples - 59p
7 pk Banana - 98p
500g Easy Peeler Tangerines - 79p
Soreen Malt Loaves 5 pk - £1
2kg King Edwards Potatoes - £1.50
Tomatoes 6 pk - 63p
Cucumber x 2 - 91p
500g Pasta x 2 - £2
4x Chopped Tomato Tins - £1.39
Frubes 9 pk - 95p
3 x Orange Juice Carton - 75p
6 x Jelly Pot - £1.89
Total - £19.46
Double up a few of those to make it up to £23 or maybe add a bit of meat to it to try and balance it nutritionally a little more. Maybe throw in another loaf with jam and butter for toast to cover breakfast. It is never going to be ideally nutritionally balanced but that amount of money can stretch a hell of a long way.
If they trusted the families with the money then maybe more food might get to children's mouths and they could afford to give the families less than they give the outsourced companies. But instead there are people profiting off child poverty. This is so fucking depressing.
