The School Food Trust said that all schools should continue to strive for good quality food and do more to encourage an increase in the number of children buying schools meals.
The call comes after research by consumer charity Which? revealed that just 45 per cent of children have school meals, a figure the organisation claims is 10 per cent less than is needed to maintain low costs.
Freedom of information requests sent out to 154 councils in England revealed that the average meal price across all schools in the 2009/10 financial year was £1.93, a rise of 5p on the previous year, below the current rate of food inflation.
David Edwards, the School Food Trust’s director of programmes, stressed that at an average of £1.93, school meals were still cheaper and healthier than other options, but urged schools to keep investing in good food to attract more children.
"Ultimately, increasing the number of children eating school meals will mean that schools can spread their costs, reducing the need for subsidy in the longer-term," he said.
While the average year-on-year rise in school meals is three per cent, there are big variations across the country according to the data from Which?. In Doncaster, meal prices have increased by 17 per cent and Lewisham Borough Council has raised prices by 14 per cent.
Which? executive director Richard Lloyd said: "School meals in most areas are still a relatively low-cost and low-hassle way to provide a decent lunch for your children.
"But if schools can't find ways to protect the extra funding that has gone to school meals and increase the number of children taking them up, there's a real risk of even more price hikes or a drop in standards, undoing the progress that has been made over the past five years."
