School meals....

[21TonyK]

Anyone else on here involved with them? Just a general thread as I am now responsible for the design, production and delivery of school meals as well as my own restaurant!

Would be interested to hear comments from parents, teachers and school catering staff as to what they think of the current situation, problems they have, solutions they have found, what their kids think etc etc

[Shaw Tarse]

Chips!

[21TonyK]

Shaw Tarse said:

Chips!

You can stand outside where the rest of the class do something more constructive

/forgot to mention I'm as well

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21TonyK said:

Anyone else on here involved with them? Just a general thread as I am now responsible for the design, production and delivery of school meals as well as my own restaurant!

Would be interested to hear comments from parents, teachers and school catering staff as to what they think of the current situation, problems they have, solutions they have found, what their kids think etc etc

Ages ago I was involved in setting up Academies in the North West. My particular area of "expertise" was support services which included catering. Just a couple of questions; are the kitchen staff your employees or the school's? Are you just providing the food or are you responsible for the whole "experience"? Is it just lunch or breakfasts as well?

Your main challenge will be providing food that meets the nutrition standards AND tastes good AND you have a wide menu. If it doesn't meet nutrition standards you'll get told off. If it doesn't taste nice you won't sell much and end up making a loss. And you'll need to do all this for less than £2 a head.

There are consultants who will come in and review the full thing for about £1k which can be useful if (like me) you have no previous experience.

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Shaw Tarse said:

Chips!

If only!!

Kids would be well fed, kitchen would be profitable, and the kids would also be too obese to cause too much trouble.

[21TonyK]

Countdown said:

Ages ago I was involved in setting up Academies in the North West. My particular area of "expertise" was support services which included catering. Just a couple of questions; are the kitchen staff your employees or the school's? Are you just providing the food or are you responsible for the whole "experience"? Is it just lunch or breakfasts as well?

Your main challenge will be providing food that meets the nutrition standards AND tastes good AND you have a wide menu. If it doesn't meet nutrition standards you'll get told off. If it doesn't taste nice you won't sell much and end up making a loss. And you'll need to do all this for less than £2 a head.

There are consultants who will come in and review the full thing for about £1k which can be useful if (like me) you have no previous experience.

I've been involved in educational catering on and off for 10 years so understand the complexities and challenges of ever moving goal posts LOL As you are probably aware its all change again from January but at least until then the infinite analysis can be pushed to the background!

I'm actually employed by the school as is the rest of the (all new) catering team and so far I have pretty much free reign. My brief is to improve the quality of the food, the overall dining experience and improve the uptake from pupils and staff.

Just looking for peoples experiences and comments.

[MauiJim]

I'm involved indirectly.

I manage all support services, including in-house catering, within a large secondary school.

Let me know if you have any questions.

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21TonyK said:

My brief is to improve the quality of the food, the overall dining experience and improve the uptake from pupils and staff.

I think that's what every single new Headteacher/Principal expects and demands

Tbh you probably know far more than I do. The only thing I would suggest is perhaps popping in to see a few "new build" academies that are local to you. I was fascinated at how school catering has moved on from when I were a lad. There are some great ideas about making catering the hub/focus of the school AND the local community, linking in with marketing and out of hours provision etc, providing food at different locations, allowing kids to order and collect, using biometrics for collecting payments.

[Pferdestarke]

Chip buttys on a huge white bread cake with gravy made it very easy to hide four fishfingers underneath and cheat the system. That was until Mr Holder saw me and had to give me 20p to pay for the goods.

[bga]

If it's KEVICS then plenty of lentils, mung beans and tofu will go down well :-)

[spikeyhead]

I have no useful advice, however I'm sure you'll do a decent job of it.

Just keep an eye on the pennies, an old mate of mine was a Savoy trained chef who ran a school canteen and meeting the budget targets was always his biggest headache.

[Baryonyx]

Are kids not allowed chips at school these days?

[21TonyK]

bga said:

If it's KEVICS then plenty of lentils, mung beans and tofu will go down well :-)

not KEVICC and the intake is not indigenous so largely lentil free zone

[TheFinners]

Turkey Twizzlers!

[bga]

21TonyK said:

not KEVICC and the intake is not indigenous so largely lentil free zone