Since 1st April 2022 Harlech Foodservice has provided over three million nutritious school meals to primary and secondary schools across North Wales and into Merseyside. It comes at a time when the Welsh Government announced they are rolling out free school meals to all of Wales’ 272,000 pupils by 2024.
Mark Lawton, commercial director at Harlech Foodservice, said: “It’s very encouraging for us and for our policy of trying to use Welsh food producers whenever possible. We do this because we believe in the high quality and reputation of Welsh produce which is recognised on both sides of the border and because we make every effort to reduce food miles.”
Harlech, which celebrated its 50th anniversary this year, is also a major supplier to care homes across North & Mid Wales and has seen growth in that sector too with their customer base increasing by 55% and their deliveries by 56%.
Lawton added: “It is important for customers to make their supply chains as sustainable as possible ensuring that products are locally produced and reducing food miles makes even more sense.
“We can help them reduce their carbon footprint by supplying them with more sustainably-sourced products and by our own efforts to be greener where we are looking at options for switching our delivery fleet to electric or hydrogen power. At the same time the work we are doing to cut carbon use is impressing customers and convincing them we are a company that can help them achieve their own renewable goals.”
A focus on reduced food miles also helped Harlech Foodservice to win a contract to supply Keele University in Staffordshire and Salford Catering College, in Greater Manchester.