Recommendation 11

Schools taking part in the scheme ordered electronic codes (eCodes) online that could be converted into shopping vouchers for families to use at nominated supermarkets.17 The Department told us that a reason for selecting Edenred to run the scheme was that Edenred already had established relationships with some supermarket chains, and it had wanted to pick an existing scheme that could start as quickly as possible. The number of supermarket chains participating in the scheme rose from six at the start to 10 by 29 June 2020. The Department told us that the six supermarket chains involved at the start accounted for a good share of the United Kingdom supermarket market and had good geographical coverage.18 However, we note that almost 2,500 schools (11.2% of all schools) were more than five kilometres from their nearest participating store at the start of the scheme. There was a limited choice for a further 6.0% of schools, that had only one participating supermarket store within five kilometres.19