Our food is lovely. It’s very nutritious and meets children’s needs for the vitamins and minerals they need to grow and stay healthy. We try to keep the menus child-friendly and at the same time, quite traditional, always nutritionally analysing our menus to ensure they are healthy and balanced.
To summarise, our school meals are tasty, nutritious and child-friendly, but at the same time we encourage the children to push their taste boundaries and try something new.
Healthy, Delicious Food
We use fresh, local ingredients, and all our meat products come in fresh, not frozen, so that our Cooks can cook from scratch. It’s the sort of food you would make at home. We have lots of fresh salads and our current aim is to have a salad bar in every school for variety and choice. We find the children love to choose their own salads and vegetables and if they choose them they are most likely to eat them. Our tomato-based sauce, used in several dishes, includes ‘hidden’ vegetables tucked away to make the sauce both tasty and healthy.
There’s always a roast day every week (Wednesday) and we aim for a meat-free day once a week. Fresh fruit is always available as an alternative to the dessert and often, yoghurt features as a choice too.
Special Dietary Requirements
We work with parents to serve children with special dietary needs, such as wheat-free or dairy-free. If a child needs a special diet we encourage their parent or carer to contact us so we can work out an adapted menu for them. And of course, children with allergies and food intolerances can also be accommodated in most cases.
We also work with schools and parents to provide meals that meet religious or cultural requirements where appropriate. Each day there is a vegetarian option and these too are mostly made with fresh ingredients, on-site (with the exception of vegetarian sausages).
We never use nuts in any of our recipes.
Our Current Suppliers:
We ask our suppliers for as much fresh Kentish produce as they can provide. Up to 50-60% of our fruit and veg is grown in Kent, depending on the season.
- Q Catering, for our dried goods
- Salvatori, for our Fresh Meat
- C & M Hayes Ltd, for fresh fruit and vegetables