School meals will soar in price or vanish without a significant injection of government funds, parents are to be told today. Sandra Russell, chairwoman of the Local Authority Caterers Association, told The Times that school meal provision was not sustainable because of the credit crunch, rising food prices and declining numbers of children eating school meals.

Hundreds of millions of pounds is said to be needed from the Government to prop up the system, or meals could rise by 30p a day – costing more than £100 extra each year for a family with two children. Parents already pay between £1.50 and £2 for each meal, but some catering companies are running at a deficit.

New nutrition regulations that come into force this year will make the situation even more untenable, Ms Russell said. Kitchen staff will have to provide details of the calories, fat and nutrients in each dish, restricting the choice that catering firms can offer and putting off even more children. Numbers dropped after Jamie Oliver, the television chef, campaigned in 2005 to improve the standards of school lunches.

Many schools now serve only healthy meals and almost half a million fewer pupils ate school lunches last year than two years earlier. The latest take-up of school meals will be announced this week at the association’s annual conference.

Ms Russell will challenge schools and the Government at the event, saying that head teachers need to put nutrition at the heart of the curriculum, and that ministers from different departments should work together to tackle childhood obesity.

Detailed nutrition targets must be implemented at secondary schools from September 2009, such as meals not containing more than 11 per cent fat or less than 40 per cent of the recommended daily intake of vitamin C.

Ms Russell said: “Our regulations are the most stringent in Europe. I do have concerns about how secondary school catering is going to stay sustainable when the nutrition standards are introduced. Some children don’t recognise the food served in schools because they haven’t eaten it at home. We have generations of young mums who can’t actually cook.”

Ms Russell said that catering firms would have to buy nutritional analysis software to meet the new standards. If schools experience low take-up of school meals, then they will lose funding, Ms Russell said. She added: “There is the impact of rising food prices and distribution charges. I think it will be a case of putting school meal prices up or asking for additional government funding.”

Kevin Brennan, the Education Minister, said that children should have to stay on school premises at lunchtime in order to prevent them eating junk food. The restriction could help to tackle obesity and prevent tensions with those who live near by, he said. The proposal was condemned by head teachers as unworkable.