Marcus Rashford praises Morrisons for increasing capacity of its meal delivery service for school children

Morrisons has increased the scale of its service for school children entitled to free school meals while schools remain closed.

The Morrisons School Meal Box provides at least £15 worth of food to the children who need it most. It has been developed in partnership with Morrisons' nutritionist Dr Hayley Marson to ensure the items included are nutritious and there is no delivery charge.

Marcus Rashford, MBE, footballer and campaigner on child hunger, said: "The purpose of forming the Child Food Poverty Taskforce was to demonstrate a strong commitment from the food industry to protect those most vulnerable across the UK.

"With shared values and ambitions, we have demonstrated power in unity across competitor businesses and I have been proud of initiatives members have rolled out in response to child hunger in recent months.

"Morrisons has acted by example in covering the deficit caused by children isolating and now acting to guarantee children on free school meals receive the substance and nutrition that they require and deserve during what is a difficult time for all. A big thank you to all involved."

Schools in England can claim back the costs from the Government as part of the free school meals programme. Since November, Morrisons’ stores have been working with their local schools to provide isolating children who would normally be eligible for free-school meals with food for breakfast and lunches.

Now, tens of thousands of Morrisons School Meal Boxes can be provided each week as Morrisons is moving the fulfilment out of stores and into its food box manufacturing team. It is also partnering with DPD to deliver the boxes directly to pupils’ homes, free of charge.

The Morrisons School Meal Box provides enough food for one child to have five breakfasts and five lunches.

Schools who wish to place an order need to follow this link and complete the form: https://www.morrisons.com/schools/order/. Boxes are delivered Monday to Friday and when ordered before 10am are delivered the next working day. Parents will be provided with tracking information by DPD.

Rebecca Singleton, Customer and Community Director at Morrisons, said: “Since November, schools have been telling us they’ve had difficulty getting free school meals to children as many parents cannot get to a supermarket during the pandemic. Our Morrisons School Meals Boxes will ensure that children are getting good quality, nutritional food delivered directly to their door.”

Dwain McDonald, CEO of DPD, said: “Well done Morrisons. This is a really brilliant initiative. We are delighted to support it and I know our people will step up and get right behind this.”

The Morrisons School Meal Box is available now. For more information please visit: https://www.morrisons.com/schools/order/.

Morrisons is also continuing to work with local food banks and its customers have made use of 100,000 meals and saved 100 tonnes of food from going to waste by using the Too Good to Go app, over the last year.