Mark, who worked at a number of restaurants in the Gordon Ramsay empire including opening the acclaimed Gordon Ramsay at Claridges, now runs his own restaurant Brasserie MS in Folkestone.

As pressure grows on the school food sector following ‘significant’ food cost increases, staffing shortages and funding shortfalls LACA, the school food people, appointed Mark to help raise the profile of the situation and the organisation.

Commenting on the news, Mark said: “I am delighted and excited to have joined forces with LACA and be a part of the team who will make things better for the children in our schools. So many children are eligible for free school meals, meaning they have financial backgrounds which many of us can’t even imagine.

“For some of them this may be the only hot meal they have in the entire day. We need to get behind them and petition out Government to ensure there is enough funding moving forward to allow schools to give them a healthy, nutritious and delicious two course meal. I have joined the team at LACA to make this happen and get the funding we need in schools to feed our future.”

Mark has already started his work for LACA when he joined in with the ‘Levelling Up School Food’ campaign that was launched on 6th February 2024. ‘Levelling Up School Food’ will be the theme for the LACA Main Event, which will take place from 3-4th July at the Hilton Birmingham Metropole.

Anita Brown, chair of LACA, added: “Mark is the ideal person to help us raise our profile and to draw more attention to the amazing work being done by the incredible people who work in school food in such difficult times operationally.

“His deep understanding of what great nutritional food looks like will be both an inspiration to our members and a great support to the sector. Furthermore as a father of school age children he knows what an essential service is being provided by our members who deliver as much as six million healthy and nutritious meals every day.”