It's become customary to give the government a rough ride on everything, so any representative, however tentatively connected with the main seat of power, is seen as fair game.
That's how Michael Nelson, head of research at the School Food Trust, found himself confronted by a group full of people if not exactly baying for his blood over new nutritional standards in secondary schools, then taking out all their frustrations on his person.
The LACA London & South East region autumn event yesterday was a chance for caterers and local authority members to engage with the Trust, and put their views across.
However, academic Verner Wheelock, formerly of Bradford University, poured petrol on the fire of many a simmering frustration with a lecture purporting to show that the whole basis for the nutritional standards was fundamentally flawed. Thanks Vernon, you could imagine Nelson saying through gritted teeth as he sat on the front row taking the blows.
The assembled caterers and local authorities took this as a sign to rip into Nelson, questioning how the Trust's funding was being used, its inability to listen and above all how the nutritional standards were badly thought-through, and impossible to implement.
Allyson Lloyd, the LACA vice chair, eventually managed to calm the room down, reminding that this was a forum for engaging constructively with government - rather than throwing out random insults.
Yet still the accusations came, that the School Food Trust had brought the regulations without any consultation of the industry, and that the new laws would causing inordinate amounts of stress.
Some of this may be true. However, at at the risk of seeming like a cheerleader for the current administration, haven't we been here before? Two years ago, the whole sector was up in arms about food standards being brought in primary schools - and now it's been taken on board with few problems. As nutritionalists working with schools have shown, some of who spoke yesterday, it is quite possible for food regulations to be implemented.
And shouldn't we just be getting on with it? One thing for sure is that there's no chance government is going to backtrack on the new regulations now.
Yes, secondary schools are a different proposition, with kids allowed outside school gates at lunchtime - and that in itself is another issue. However, the more nutritionally aware children from primary schools are coming through the system, and that should give people hope.
Local authorities do have a point over the government's approach to funding, which on a two-year round basis, leaves council accountants questioning whether any monies should be put towards long term planning.
But that aside it would be well to remember that there's a reason for the new nutritional standards - because school food had sunk to such a low level over the last 20 years. And second, unlike rules, guidelines tend be ignored or fudged.