JOIN THE SCHOOL FOOD REVOLUTION
What to Expect:
We reach tens of thousands of pupils each day, helping the school kitchen teams to serve up nutritious, inexpensive, generation-powering, mind-opening, society-changing food in schools.
We tailor our offering to each school or academy trust but have three main ways of working:
1 – Training of your existing team to start cooking food in house, from scratch.
2 – We help you to recruit additional staff and/or Head Chefs, who we then train and support to transform the food on offer.
3 – We help your chain of schools or MAT recruit an Exec Chef, who will be responsible for a set number of schools. We also develop a training programme for that chef and the different kitchen teams.
The early days – the first few months
We carry out an audit, prepare a proposed plan of action and your bespoke training programme.
Once contracts are signed, our chef trainers begin teaching your kitchen teams, new menus are drafted and suppliers brought on board.
The dining hall starts being treated as a classroom – each visit is an education where children learn about food while they enjoy what they are eating and the experience.
Looking ahead – preparing for long-term change
Over the next few months, we bring parents on board – offering tasting sessions of the menu.
We start looking at growing spaces and what cooking curriculum could work at your school.
We support the kitchen team to instil a whole school food ethos within the school.
Into the future
We offer ongoing support and training. Your kitchen team has access to our menus, our Chefs Alliance – a network of school kitchen teams – and our suppliers.
We work with you to embed food education within the school day and to link the garden to the menu.
Each school presents a different challenge, unexpected issues can occur, but we always get there in the end and the whole school benefits.
The cost?
We do charge for our service but as a charity, we aim to keep costs of the transformation as low as possible. In some cases, we can arrange match-funding to help your school.
When it comes to ongoing costs for the food and produce your team uses, you may be surprised to find out it doesn’t have to cost more than the existing budget. As well as training your team to cook from scratch, we show them how to make the most out of the produce. Meat-free days are introduced, which allows for savings. And smart thinking means leftovers become snacks for the following day.
Our priority is to fuel the future – but we’ve proved it’s possible to make exciting, creative school meals well within school budgets.
Take all of that into account – it’s a no-brainer to serve great-tasting, sustainable nutritious food.
If you are a Headteacher and your school is ready to join the revolution, send us your details.
Schools Enquiry form
Case Study 01
Recruiting a new team.
Case Study 02
Training an existing team.
Don’t take our word for it, here’s what School Teachers have to say:
“The school is thriving, academic performance is some of the highest in the country, attendance is great, behaviour brilliant and the school is 200% over subscribed with parents very keen to get their children in. It’s hard to quantify how much of this is down to the food, but the boost to the school community’s esteem in so many ways is palpable,”
Louise Nichols, Exec Head of LEAP Federation and Co-founder of Chefs in Schools
“We have quickly seen the positive results of this partnership with happy children and happy budgets. I can’t thank Chefs in Schools enough and would recommend them to others,”
Marie Kapszewicz, Coin Street Nursery
“We’ve been blown away by the difference it makes at the school. Children are excited to be eating lunch much more than they ever were, they’re asking about it and interested in the food. Head Chef James’ passion enthuses others, the number of teachers who have school dinners has shot up”.
Nick Mallender, Head Teacher at Grasmere
Case Study 1 – Recruiting a new team
Headteacher Samantha Palin, left, with chefs Jake Taylor, centre, and Sam Riches, right, at Woodmansterne School in south London. Photograph: Phil Fisk / The Observer.
“It’s more than the food on a plate, it’s the education that comes with it. By the time pupils leave at 18, you want them to know how to keep themselves healthy, but also keep their brain engaged.”
Samantha Palin, Headteacher.
In 2019, we started working with Woodmansterne School, an all-through school in southwest London. Their contracted food provision served frozen, beige food. Food waste levels were high, children were unhappy and parents were complaining.
After a few teething problems – we helped the school find Head Chefs – Jacob and Sam. They had previously run a street food business and were looking for a more meaningful career. We provided support and training to help Sam and Jacob make the transition to the school setting. They have now trained their team and encouraged them to contribute their own recipes to the menu, for example – Naomi’s jollof rice is a huge hit with the kids. They also push boundaries, serving scallops, clams and oysters as an optional extra for Fish Friday.
Jacob and Sam are also transforming the food education on offer. They’ve run courses on setting up street food business – this required business planning, marketing, menu design and pitching to industry – great experiences for the students. Renowned chefs have been on site, cooking up school lunches with pupils and doing Q&As. The team also installed a food smoker and a koji lab – where science and food combine. Their ambitions are limitless.
Next, they hope to open the first Michelin-starred restaurant in a school. Watch this space!
Case Study 2 – Training an existing team
When a standalone primary school, like Smallwood, in Tooting, with around 300 pupils, wants to transform their lunch offer, we carry out a skills and structure audit, spend time with the kitchen team, assess what training they’ve had and if they need additional staff. We then develop an intensive training plan.
The kitchen team at Smallwood were keen to cook all meals themselves but needed training to make it happen. For two weeks, our chef trainers worked alongside the team, helping them to create and cook new menus. They now have access to our recipes, and suppliers who support us, and they know they can always call if help is needed.
Head Chef Emandy says: “We used to serve everything and anything, but it was mostly processed and frozen food. We had baked beans in tins, now we cook them from scratch. And take Fridays, Friday is fish day, so before it would come frozen, but now it’s fresh fish and we make it with flour and breadcrumbs. We had training before but nothing in-depth like this.”
When we recently visited to see how they were getting along, a fresh batch of school-made ketchup was bubbling on the hob and Head Chef Emandy was mixing together her secret blend of spices for that day’s lunch of jerk chicken. Pupils popped in with a bowl of vegetables they’d picked from the school veg patch.
Emandy is glad her school decided to do things differently.
“I want all schools to have great catering because then the kids are eating more healthily,” Emandy said. “Kids eat with their eyes and their nose, so if we start from a young age exposing them to all sorts of good food, we are giving them a good start in life.”