The council served 2.1 million nutritious meals to 55 primary and secondary schools in Nottingham last year.
From April 2020 Nottingham City Council will also provide a catering service for schools in Derby, including:
- Beaufort Community Primary
- Cherry Tree Hill Primary
- Asterdale Primary
- Borrow Wood Primary
Councillor Neghat Khan, said: “The key to the council’s recent success is that the education catering team recognises the importance of working in partnership with each school to ensure individual needs are met and expectations are exceeded.
“Our highly experienced team are always prepared to go above and beyond - from reflecting the school’s teaching programme in the menus and providing educational enrichment through clubs to running engaging cooking classes and supporting fundraising initiatives.”
Nottingham City Council is following a five-year business plan that seeks to establish themselves as a ‘strong presence’ in the education catering sector, which is part of a contract catering market worth £5 billion in the UK by 2020/21. Nottingham City Council are currently the largest school food provider in the city.
Jo Bunting, from Odyssey Collaborative Trust, added: “We felt that Nottingham City Council’s emphasis on local fresh ingredients, quality meals for all with a flexibility of choice of menus to suit our children - including their Halal offer - and commitment to meet ‘Schools at Food for Life’ silver standard from the start of contract, made them the perfect partner for us to continue developing our catering service.
“The team were really passionate throughout the pitch, gave positive answers to our questions and the food presentation was fresh, attractive and authentic.”