M&S topping up £15 school meal vouchers to £20 for low-income families in England – is it worth it?

It's important to note that even if eligible, you won't necessarily be offered one of these vouchers, as schools can choose to give food parcels instead – but here we're focusing on the vouchers and we'll take you through how they work and where's best to spend them.

Who's eligible and how does it work?

Families with children in England who qualify for school meals (Gov.uk has eligibility criteria) are eligible for a £15 voucher per week, per child (£20 if a parent picks an M&S voucher), as long as your school has chosen to give these vouchers instead of food parcels. The vouchers can be sent to parents to cover the four weeks between Monday 18 January and Friday 12 February.

If your school has chosen to give these food vouchers, it will email you a 16-digit code, which you can then redeem online for an e-gift card of your choice. You can get £15 to spend at Aldi, Asda, Company Shop Group, Iceland, McColl's, Morrisons, Sainsbury's, Tesco or Waitrose, or £20 at M&S (it'll show as a £15 voucher, but M&S says the additional £5 will be automatically added within a few hours of receipt). Alternatively, your school can select a gift card, print it, and post it to you.

How long is a voucher valid for?

The voucher works in the same way as a gift card, so you don't need to spend it all in one go and they have long expiry dates, between 12 months and five years. See Edenred (the company that distributes the vouchers) for more details, including on what to do if your code doesn't arrive, as well as other frequently asked questions.

Is the extra £5 at M&S worth it?

We compared the cost of a Government recommended shopping basket for one week of child lunches across multiple supermarkets. We also compared the cost using MSE Jenny's shopping basket for her child that she'd typically buy at Tesco closer to the £15 mark.

In our number crunching, we've gone for the cheapest products within the Government list, but we also used MSE Jenny's basket because it included some branded items, making it more of a real world example. Of course, this is simply a snapshot of what a basket may look like, and your shop may look different. We've compared the big supermarkets, but we haven't included Waitrose in the table as this is about comparing to see whether it's worth trading up from the more budget-friendly supermarkets to get the extra £5 at M&S.

How can I make my voucher go further at other supermarkets?

If you only have a certain supermarket near you, and no access to transport, then no matter the savings elsewhere, they most likely won't offset the cost of public transport or taxis to access another supermarket. But we have some tips to stretch your voucher further in any supermarket the offers are valid in, including buying yellow-stickered reduced food, using the cashback app Shopmium, or coupons from our Supermarket Coupons page.