A PADIHAM hotelier is offering free meals to children in response to a online free school meal package exposé.

Michael Huckerby, who is the director of the Lawrence Hotel in Padiham is offering 100 free home cooked meals next Friday after being disgusted by a viral tweet from a mother with a photo of a food parcel she was sent to feed her child for 10 days.

He added: "I don't know how you survive off that. If you look at what you get for £30 from the shop compared to what is on there, it's just ridiculous.

"By next Friday, most of the package will have been used or won't be edible."

Michael will be making meals such as burger and chips, sausage and mash and fish and chips and is hopeful that, if he is able to get further support, he can offer the service once a fortnight.

He also hopes that after seeing the parcel this mother has been given that more businesses will offer help to families in the community.

This comes after thousands were disgusted by a tweet from a mother showing what she had been sent to feed her child who receives free school meals for two weeks.

The image, which has been shared tens of thousands of times on Twitter shows the free school meal package which is supposed to amount to £30, however the mother said she could pick up at Asda for £5.22.

The package contained two baking potatoes, a tin of beans, a loaf of bread, a bag of pasta, some slices of cheese, two Soreen slices, three frubes, two carrots, three apples and a tomato.

A spokesman for the company which provided the hamper on behalf of the scheme, Chartwells, has since responded to the woman’s social media post, stating the hamper ‘did not reflect’ the specification of the items they were handing out.

It read: “Thank you for bringing this to our attention, this does not reflect the specification of one of our hampers. Please can you DM us the details of the school that your child attends and we will investigate immediately.”