Soil Association awards Pride Catering three silver Food for Life Catering Marks

Pride Catering has scooped a hat trick of silver Food for Life Catering Marks for its school meals work in the South-east.

The caterer's contracts at Vineyard, Heathfield and Brookland schools - all in the South-east - were previously bronze. Pride now holds one gold, four silver and seven bronze catering marks.

Celebrity chef and president of the Academy of Culinary Arts Brian Turner presented Pride with the awards at a ceremony held in London last month.

Deborah Kenny, senior operations manager, accepted the awards in recognition of the school meals that Pride Catering serves to numerous schools in the South-east.

"We won the awards thanks to our high food quality standards - for example, we use only free-range chicken and eggs," she explained. "All our milk and the majority of our fruit and vegetables are organic, and we definitely don't use undesirables like GM ingredients and E-numbers."

The Food for Life Catering Mark is a Soil Association award that offers a step-by-step route to providing freshly prepared, locally sourced produced, seasonal and organic food.

Open to caterers in all sectors, the Catering Mark has three tiers: gold, silver and bronze, with the bronze award requiring the caterer's menu to be 75% freshly prepared and to use seasonal ingredients.

Brian Turner added: "Working with Food for Life Partnership schools, the caterers are an integral part of a bigger picture, teaching children about the importance of sitting around a table together, healthy food, and where their food comes from.

"What better way to tackle obesity and other health issues as well as improve social cohesion?"

Edwards & Ward wins Soil Association's Food for Life Gold award >>

Pride Catering scoops up £1.75m of new contracts >>

By Janie Stamford

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