School dinners don't come cheap and with the cost of living on the increase, more and more parents are turning to packed lunches.
Unless your child qualifies for free school meals then it's almost always cheaper to buy the ingredients for your own child's lunch from the supermarket.
That's why Manchester Family headed out to the six main supermarkets to see which is cheapest for making your own lunchbox.
Opting for standard products, rather than venturing into the budget ranges, the plan was to make a ham sandwich and include a tube yoghurt, a packet of crisps and a Royal Gala apple for a little as possible, using like-for-like products.
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We visited Asda, Morrisons, Sainsbury's, Tesco, Aldi and Lidl and opted for own brand items where possible, except for the Wildlife Choobs, as only Aldi and Lidl sell their own versions.
Overall - with two pieces of bread, 40g (four slices) of ham and 6g of margarine used for the comparison - it was Aldi which came out as cheapest, at 74.5p for the entire lunchbox.
Lidl wasn't far behind, at 78.3p, followed by Asda at 87.5p and Tesco at 93.4p. The most expensive were Morrisons at 95.5p and Sainsbury's at 97.7p.
While most would agree that spending less than a quid on lunch is pretty reasonable, some parents said there is a big problem in the fact that some schools have restrictions on what parents are allowed to put in lunchboxes.
They say the crisps in particular, from the other supermarkets as well as Aldi, would be banned in their child's school because of the high levels of fat and salt.
Commenting on the article on the M.E.N's Facebook page, Michelle Clarke said: "Some of these won't be allowed in my child's lunch box by the school."
And she wasn't the only one to raise the issue.
"Whose lunch box is that?" said Charmaine Fallon. "Some school state healthy eating only, which included baked crisp only!"
Another said her child's school had banned crisps because 'they take too long to eat' and one dad said his child's school had banned sweets, cakes, muffins and crisps from lunchboxes, yet gave pupils sweets as a reward.
It comes as children at Co-op Academy Blackley have complained of not having enough time to eat their lunch, with parents saying they're 'coming home starving'.
The school says that following consultation with parents dinner-time has been extended to 40 minutes to give children more time to eat, adding that wait times can often be longer at the start of a school year as new pupils settle in.
Does your child's school restrict what they can have in their lunchboxes or for snacks? Is your child having enough time to eat at school? Let us know your views in the comments here.
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