The boss of the company that provides school meals for pupils in Glasgow has criticised regulations on what can be served.

Fergus Chambers, the managing director of Cordia, said 30,000 fewer children are eating school lunches since healthier meals were introduced and has urged the government to carry out a "root and branch" review of the regulations.

Uptake of school meals in Glasgow has fallen from 61% to 2006 to 38%. Across Scotland, the number of secondary school pupils taking school meals fell to 39.2% in 2009 - the lowest level for a decade.

Speaking in a radio interview, Mr Chambers said: "At the moment we've got very tight specifications, with virtually no salt, sugar and fat, yet the pupils can walk out the front door of the school and eat whatever they want. And that to me is just not right.

"The statistics prove it themselves: 30,000 fewer schoolchildren per day in Scotland are enjoying school meals since the new legislation came in.

"There are draconian specifications in place. Everybody accepts we want to improve the diet of children and reduce obesity; the question is: is it the right way of going about it?

"At the end of the day school meals in Glasgow represent only 6.6% of a child's diet over a year and yet it's the only area of their intake where there's legislation."

The regulations are designed to take fatty foods and sweets off the school dinner menu and they require at least two portions of fruit and vegetables to be offered to pupils each lunchtime.

Pupils can only be served deep fried food once a week, and chips can only be served as long as the meal is balanced.

The regulations came into effect in secondary schools last year, having previously been introduced in primaries.