Accents, plenty of those in the hospitality sector especially in London, but I’m referring to a meeting I had yesterday with Maidenhead’s Accent Catering.
The small but perfectly formed caterer is growing steadily and has 30 or so contracts in B&I and the school market.
It recently signed on-the-line to cater at Seven Kings High School in Ilford, Essex, a secondary school and six form combined with more than 1,500 pupils run by Sir Alan Steer.
Steer’s approach to food at school encapsulates the oft referred to “whole school approach”, in that he’s found £400,000 to invest in kitchen and dining facilities to deliver the best food possible to pupils.
Alas, according to Accent’s managing director Gordon Haggarty Seven Kings is a rare beast in attaching so much importance to catering.
“Most county or borough wide contracts remain price led even now,” Haggarty told me. “Too many management teams and governors at schools remain ignorant of the Government’s food guidelines. They don’t understand them and view it as the caterer’s problem.”
It's not surprising. Ofsted reports aside [and for school meals even they lack teeth] school meals simply aren’t high on the average head teacher’s to do list and you can hardly blame them.
Resources are tight, targets plentiful and simply put, schools are not judged on their catering but their exam results - a case of a few carrots (if you’re lucky) and no stick.
It seems unless politicians demand that head teachers get involved and provide them with extra support and funding, improvement will be limited to pockets of excellence with the majority of areas battling declining meal up take.
With this in mind perhaps it’s the head teachers, school governors and politicians that need to go “back to school”.
