Utah: School lunches taken back from students whose parents were in arrears

School officials in the US state of Utah have apologised after an employee confiscated and discarded the lunches of about 30 children whose parents were said to be in arrears on meal payments.

Outraged parents in Salt Lake City said the students at Uintah Elementary primary school had been humiliated.

The school system has launched an inquiry into the Tuesday incident, blamed on a sole "nutrition manager".

The children whose meals were put in the rubbish were given fruit and milk.

"This was a mistake. This was handled wrong,'' Jason Olsen, a spokesman for the Salt Lake City school system said on Thursday.

According to Salt Lake City school officials, on Monday a nutrition manager arrived at Uintah Elementary to investigate what it described as a high number of negative balances on the accounts students use to pay for lunches prepared and served by the school.

The nutrition manager and another school employee began calling parents with negative balances in an effort to recoup payment, the school system said.

Then, on Tuesday, students who had queued up and were served lunch only to arrive at the tills and show negative balances were told to give back the lunches.