More than two million children in England are eligible for free school meals with need surging by 40% since before the pandemic.
Figures from the Department for Education show nearly one in four (23.8%) state school pupils qualified for school dinners in January - up from 1.9 million (22.5%) in 2022 and 1.4 million (17.3%) before the pandemic began in 2020.
The figure has increased every year since January 2018, when it stood at 13.6% or 1.1 million.
Kids in the North East were most affected, where 30.4% of all state pupils qualify, followed by the West Midlands on 27.9%, the North West on 26.8% and Yorkshire and Humber on 26%.
The lowest was is south-east England at 18.8%.
All children in England can get free school meals up to the end of Year 2 but after that it only applies to households on certain benefits.
Pupils living in Universal Credit families are eligible if their parents earn less than £7,400-a-year from work.
Kevin Courtney, Joint General Secretary of the National Education Union (NEU), told the Mirror that the numbers of people struggling was "nothing short of a national scandal".
He said: "The threshold for families becoming eligible for the vital support that Free School Meals provide is criminally low – households need to be on less that £7,400 to qualify.
"The fact that, in 2023, we are now seeing record numbers of families struggling to get by on this income is nothing short of a national scandal.
"Moreover, this data doesn’t take into account the millions of children in families who earn slightly over this base rate and whose children therefore miss out on the lifeline of a hot, healthy dinner at school every day.
"If children go hungry at school they can’t learn – they can’t enjoy their studies or reach their full potential. The NEU stands with over 200 organisations calling for Free School Meals for All, to ensure that no child is left behind.”
Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said the numbers should "serve as a wake-up call about the appallingly high levels of childhood poverty".
And he warned that the figures do not reveal the full scale of the problem due to the harsh limits on eligibility.
The Mirror and the National Education Union are calling for free school meals for all pupils in England's primary schools, in line with commitments in Scotland and Wales.
Mr Barton said: "The Government must, as a matter of urgency, extend free school meals provision to all families in receipt of Universal Credit and it must put its tired rhetoric about 'levelling up' into practice by committing to end the scourge of child poverty."
Social mobility organisation the Sutton Trust warned the data is "a worrying indicator of increasing poverty and lower incomes".
Carl Cullinane, director of research and policy, said: "The government should extend free school meals to all children whose families are on Universal Credit.
"Without radical intervention and increased provision for those who need it most, the attainment gap between the most and least disadvantaged children will widen."
Recent research found an additional 600,000 children were plunged into poverty in a year as ministers ditched the £20-a-week Universal Credit uplift brought in during the pandemic.
The End Child Poverty Coalition found the total number of kids living in poverty soared to 4.2million in 2021-22.
A Department for Education spokesman said it had extended eligibility "several times to more groups of children than any other government over the past half a century".
The NEU will hold a week of action from June 24-30 to pile pressure on the Government over free school meals. Find out more here.
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