About our service

Who we are

Our Schools Catering Service, forming part of the Traded Services Team, are dedicated to provide high quality meals to young persons across the borough, providing a warm and comforting service experience. We are uniquely positioned to be able to give schools and pupils a high level of service providing in person expertise when needed most with our locally based, qualified Kitchen teams, employing more than 350 staff, the majority of whom are also local residents. Our management team is locally based providing a wealth of knowledge and experience to support our schools.

Dietary Requirements

We understand that additional dietary requirements are ever present nationwide through allergies, intolerances, cultural preferences and other medical conditions that can affect what children and people can eat. We adapt our menus and source alternative ingredients to try and ensure dietary needs are not only met, but the food served can be enjoyed by all. Please speak with your school in the first instance to let them know of any dietary requirements where a quick and simple electronic form can be completed to guide you through the process. We often meet with parents direct where needed to fully understand requirements and provide a welcoming approach. Additionally, please follow the link in the primary and secondary school meals pages.

Nutritional Information

Our menus offer students well balanced and nutritious food to support them through whatever the school day may bring. Happy and healthy pupils at mealtimes not only supports their education each day but helps pupils try a range of flavours from a wide range of cultures and develops healthy eating habits for a lifetime.

Our school menus are created to ensure they are exciting, appealing to the customers and ensure we meet the government legislation known as the School Food Standards.This legislation provides schools and caterers clear guidance as to what can be served in schools across the school day.

Visit our primary and secondary school menu pages for more detail on nutritional information regarding our menu provision.

Our Partners

• We work closely with headteachers to ensure the service we provide can be the best for each school.
• Suppliers - establishing suppliers through relevant procurement processes ensures we get value for money for the items we need to keep the cost of each meal as low as possible. Key elements for our suppliers aims to ensure they are regionally based using local produce where at all possible. We ask our suppliers to support the St Helens borough community in various ways such as tasting sessions and community initiatives such as food parcels and added social value.
• We partner with local authority stakeholders to support school initiatives and support of own service requirements.
• Soil Association - annually, we work together to achieve the Food for Life Bronze Award for primary schools. This means we only uses high quality produce such as Red Tractor UK Meat. For more information, please visit the Food for Life website.
• Member of LACA to ensure the voice of St Helens borough is heard nationwide within the industry
• Northwest Catering Forum - a group to share innovation and ideas to benefit the school meals pupils receive across the region.
• External service providers - we work closely with providers to ensure the service we offer meets the needs of the customers through companies such as School Grid, who we have engaged to deliver a digital transformation project for our primary school meals service.