Public Sector Sustainable Food Procurement Initiative - A Trio of Essex Schools Raise Much More Than Awareness
Case Study: Eastwood Junior School, Rayleigh Road, EastwoodRegion: East of England (Essex)
Organisation: Junior School
Description:
Eastwood Junior School has 215 pupils and in addition has always cooked dinners for the neighbouring Infant School with 146 pupils.
The school decided to opt out of the county meals contract two years ago, in September 2002, even though the number of children buying school lunch was then relatively high, 140 for the two schools combined. The motivation for the change was staff dissatisfaction about the quality and nutritious value of the school lunch.
This was felt particularly by the Catering Manager, Mrs. Verna Hines. She had been working at the school for 22 years and could remember the time before school catering had been contracted out and she herself had led a "training kitchen" at Eastwood, to which Essex County Council sent newly appointed school cooks to gain experience. On top of this, Verna was also unhappy about the increasing unreliability of food deliveries.
Now better food products are purchased, meals have improved in quality as well as quantity, and it has been possible to make a major shift towards the promotion of healthier eating. Meals were then prepared largely from frozen food instead of fresh, as now. The meal price was then £1.40 and this is what it remains, even though more is now spent on food. Currently this amounts to about 45p per meal (32%).
Benefits
- the midday meal is subsidised by money made in the "Healthy Snacks" tuck shop at morning break-time, where fresh fruit, sandwiches and flapjacks are sold, and where every purchase comes with a free carrot stick.
- some local sourcing of food is already undertaken: a local butcher provides the school with all the meat products it uses and a local greengrocer provides all its fruit and vegetables.
- these suppliers deliver to the school and send invoices monthly. Although the food bought from them cannot be said to be cheaper than the equivalent products the school previously purchased, it is certainly superior.
- the school makes all its own bread and bread rolls and this has proved especially popular.
- during the last two years the school has held regular theme days. These have proved so popular that new ones have been added e.g. Valentine's Day, Easter and Harvest dinners. Typically, meal take-up on these days rises to well over 200, but this figure is exceeded at Christmas, when almost every child in both schools buys a cooked lunch.
Lessons learned during implementation
- school meals at Eastwood Junior School still just about break even. It is a close run thing, so it may not be long before a price rise becomes unavoidable. Nevertheless, the school is clear that it became involved in independent catering to provide an improved service, not to make a profit, and it is in that spirit that the service will continue.
- a new departure at Eastwood has been the setting up in the last few months of a Governors' catering sub-committee, especially to consider how best to promote a healthy diet, at a time when this is seen to be of growing importance nationally.
- the menu format has been determined by Verna. In the first year she organized a four-week, rolling menu in which there was a choice each day between a meat-based and vegetarian main meal. This year, this has been simplified to a two-week rolling menu, with similar alternatives.
- If you provide good food - demand for school meals will increase.
Future developments
The new Head Teacher and the new Governors' sub-committee hope in the future to use more local suppliers for food products, including, if possible, some from organic producers. The school has already made some progress on the former , currently obtaining food from four retailers rather than one as previously (see under benefits).
Further information
The case studies have been published in EAFL's guidance booklet, Providing Meals in Essex Primary Schools, distributed to every school in Essex, and can be seen in more detail on EAFL's website, www.eafl.org.uk
For further information, please contact East Anglia Food Link, The Street, Long Stratton, Norwich, NR15 2XQ on 01508 536666 or info@eafl.org.uk
Further information on implementation of the Sustainable Food & Farming
Strategy in East of England is on the web site of the Government Office
for the East of England.
www.go-east.gov.uk/goeast/our_region/regional_strategies/
Page last modified:
23 September 2005
Page published: 13 August 2004