apetito Education Forum
The business of Primary school catering is nearly unrecognisable compared to the food served in canteens as little as three years ago. Dinosaur bites are extinct, burgers banished and fish fingers thrown out.
In their place are undeniably important, necessary guidelines that ensure children are served a nutritious hot meal and afforded enough energy to get through the day, but not so much it will be converted into fat and worsen the obesity crisis - a precarious balancing act that many caterers can empathise with.
Following the fastest rise in food prices for fourteen years, sourcing ingredients at the right price is a considerable challenge, whilst local sourcing is the current buzz word in the industry. All well and good, until you get bogged down trying to define local and find a supplier who has the means to supply large numbers on a daily basis.
Also consider increasing staff costs; from accounting for the extra time it will take to prepare food from scratch to providing additional training. A qualified dietitian or nutrient analysis software package must also be employed to comply with the September standards.
At apetito we favour the comprehensive Saffron system - the UK's leading nutritional analysis solution, analysing entire menu plans and cycles to ensure a balanced yet varied menu, but as yet it is beyond most schools budgets.
A £2 limit signifies an increasingly uphill struggle to simultaneously manage the new standards and meet parental expectations, financially and otherwise. The reality is that the financial pinch is being felt universally across the UK, and a £2 cost per meal is a considerable barrier when you're trying to achieve improved meal uptake, consistency, safety, and support your cooks and balance the books.
At apetito we believe we've sourced a solution. Frozen meals afford consistent products, that are unaffected by issues such as seasonality and nutritional degeneration associated with chilled product.
Complete with nutritional profiling, you can be confident of achieving both the nutritional standards and approval of parents and kids. And with each batch of meals subjected to eight strict microbiological tests before release, you can be sure the only thing coming out of the mouths of babes is high praise indeed.