Sodexho's director of local education authority contracts, Colin Garnham-Edge, is to leave the company in September.

Garnham-Edge, who has been with Sodexho for eight years, will join Oxfordshire County Council as head of catering facilities management. He will be responsible for 180 primary schools and a turnover of £5m.

Garnham-Edge said that his biggest challenge will be to raise uptake by 15% in three years. It fell by 10% after Jamie Oliver's TV programme on school dinners aired last February and stands at 28%, compared with the UK average of 43%. "One of my first jobs will be to find out why it is so low," he said.

But he is optimistic about the task, and said: "I've worked in the public sector before and it has come on in leaps and bounds in the past five years."

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