The whole transformation took just five weeks from start to finish.
Chiswick School’s aim was to transform its magnolia painted canteen into ‘something quite special’ to provide ‘restaurant style’ catering facilities for at least 700 students and staff. Innovate designed and refurbished the premises using its own contractors in five weeks over the school’s summer break and now operates the refreshed facility.
Chiswick’s new facility features suspended ceilings and mood lighting to create a modern atmosphere, together with break out areas that students can relax in. To better manage the student throughput, a new serving area has been introduced offering a smoother check-out process, including a simplified biometric payment system.
In terms of the food offer, Chiswick School’s catering facility now provides a wide range of snacks, sandwiches, stir-fries from the Teppan grill, soups, paninis, Simply Fantastico pasta from Innovate’s Gino D’Acampo range and a salad bar, together with hot and cold drinks. Breakfast is now also available for students that want to take advantage of this.
Tony Ryan, head teacher at Chiswick School, which caters for 1,200 students aged from 11-18 in Chiswick, London, said: “What attracted us to Innovate was its different approach; an approach that has a retail ‘high street’ mentality, which didn’t come from any other companies. We liked their view on transforming the environment as well as managing the catering service, it was just what we wanted; and at the end of the day, why should students put up with any less.”
“It was an extremely exciting project to work on in a very tight time frame, but we knew after a discussion with Chiswick School that we could turn it around in the summer downtime and have it fully operational for the start of the autumn term,” explained Sarah Barnard, director of Concept and Innovation. “The transformation has been quite amazing and we’ve had great feedback from the school, staff and students.”