With children's nutrition high on the school agenda, finding the right meal provision can be a difficult task for Local Authorities. The challenge lies in both meeting the demands of the Government's food-based standards and the approval of both child and parent.
With misconceptions surrounding the quality of school dinners, winning the support of parents can be a major obstacle, but one which Cumbria County Council managed to overcome when it looked to refreshing its school foodservice provision.
The smaller rural schools within the county had previously been dependent on kitchens at other schools, where meals were prepared earlier in the morning and transported using insulated containers. With concerns over the quality and consistency of meals served to children, the council's foodservice team decided to review the meal provision to suit its customers' needs.
"Many parents were unhappy that their children could not receive piping hot meals straight from the oven", explains Sue Castle-Clarke, Head of Premises, Cumbria County Council.
"We wanted to review the situation and find another approach, which would also allow us to increase meal uptake. Our main priority was to find a way of providing children with meals which were both delicious and nutritious while also reassuring parents about meal quality. Our team felt that a cook-freeze solution might offer all of this."
Finding a solution
Introducing a cook-freeze catering solution would not only enhance the service but also simplify the entire process.
"Our team has worked closely with leading meals supplier apetito for a number of years within our community meals provision, so naturally we turned to the same company to help us make the changes we wanted. We had always known that apetito's products are excellent and it could offer a good alternative option for high quality, nutritionally balanced school meals.
"However, we decided to take our solution straight to the parents because at the end of the day, it's still them who decide whether their child will have a school meal. We wanted to allow them to judge the meals for themselves, so we worked closely with apetito to organise teatime tasting sessions for parents to sample two or three of the dishes we would be serving their children."
Parents have the final say
"The apetito dishes were well received by parents at the sessions", comments Sue. "The feedback from the taste tests was extremely positive with many responding to the questionnaire that they were more than happy for their child to eat the dinners. Many parents actually asked if they could have seconds - apetito really won them over."
Developed for use as part of a balanced school lunch menu and complying fully with the guidelines of the School Food Trust, the apetito range of 36 main meals is designed specifically for children in the primary school sector.
Frozen for freshness, each meal locks in the nutrients which are released upon regeneration to guarantee that children can enjoy and benefit from nutritious hot food every day. And with the unique Positive Release system in place, the cook-freeze solution can guarantee a safe and hot meal is served time after time, as each batch of meals is microbiologically tested during the preparation process.
Significant improvement in children's behaviour
"apetito's education food range is perfect for us", continues Sue. "It has allowed us to enhance our school foodservice in terms of greater customer satisfaction, consistency and cost effectiveness whilst simplifying the process for our dining centres. We have introduced apetito meals to 22 dining centres in the area, which weren't equipped with fully functional kitchens, enabling dinners to be prepared on site. The solution has helped us to make school food an integral part of the learning day, as meals are stored on site in freezers and oven baked when required - ensuring even more pupils can experience a piping hot, nutritionally balanced meal every day.
"The transition to include apetito meals as one of our foodservice solutions has also enabled us to offer sustainable employment opportunities within the dining centre schools, as there is now the need for staff to prepare as well as serve meals to the children. Above all, the system has allowed our team to provide an affordable service, which promotes a vibrant hot foodservice to both rural and urban schools. In addition, teachers have noticed a significant improvement in the behaviour and performance of some children, as a good hot meal at lunchtime helps settle them down during the afternoon's activities.
School meals uptake of 52% with the help of cook-freeze
"With a current national average of only 43% of pupils on roll eating a school meal each day, there has been a downturn in school meals uptake elsewhere in the UK, but at 52% our performance has actually stayed ahead of this average which shows that we are moving forward successfully.
"The after sales support from apetito has been invaluable and in particular, their help in winning the hearts and minds of both pupils and their parents. As well as providing high quality, nutritionally balanced meals, apetito continues to offer our team flexibility and a willingness to support business development - which really sets them apart as an ideal working partner."