Under the proposed plan regional and local buying and distribution agreements for food and catering services would be replaced with a centralised listing of all suppliers managed by a single ‘prime supplier’.
Catering leaders have already registered their disapproval, with Matthew White, chair of the Public Sector Catering Alliance (PSCA), saying: “Jaws hitting the floor is somewhat of an understatement in terms of reactions from public sector caterers, who have not, to my knowledge, been consulted at all in terms of these plans.
“It would appear that this has been slipped under the table, which is hugely disappointing.
“The impacts of this plan as it is currently understood could be devastating to the work that has gone on in terms of sustainability, food standards, encouraging the use of British food, local supply and the adoption of SME’s.”
The round table line-up includes Minette Batters of the National Farmers Union (NFU) and David Visick of the Federation of Wholesale Distributors (FWD), whose members also have serious misgivings about the plan.
Beyond that, the agenda includes the recruitment and retention crisis in catering, the threat to the very existence of some services posed by rising prices and stagnant budgets, and the challenges of continuing to meet Net Zero targets amid so many resource issues.