Jamie's going back to school

Jamie Oliver may have thought turning 15 unemployed teenagers into chefs was tough, but that may seem like a piece of cake compared with his next challenge.

Oliver has agreed to make a new TV series to try to teach dinner ladies in deprived areas how to create more nutritional meals.

However, he may find the cooks less than welcoming following his recent scathing criticism of their talents.

'School dinners are cheap. They're outsourced to businesses who have to make a profit out of selling them,' Oliver, 28, told BBC Good Food Magazine.

'So they end up being made of rubbish - cheaper than chips.

'And then they complain about kids being hyperactive, not being able to concentrate. It doesn't have to be like that. The actual food children eat in school is terrible.'

The celebrity chef - who became a household name with TV series Jamie's Kitchen and Fifteen - said he would love to reinvent school dinners, claiming 'genius' would be needed to make a change amid the tight budgets involved.

Oliver will hope he makes more of an impact than rival Loyd Grossman. It is still unclear whether his £40million Governmentbacked drive to improve NHS cuisine made a difference.

Oliver's comments came after a report from the Soil Association dubbed primary school lunches 'muck off a truck'.

They included too much processed food and the country was storing up health problems as a result, it said.

The report claimed the Government spent about 60p a head on each prison lunch but just 35p on school food.