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Surrey County Council Commercial Services has achieved a Gold ‘Food for Life’ (FFL) catering mark across 292 of its primary schools. The benchmark recognises caterers who serve healthy, nutritious and responsibly sourced food and is a guarantee from the Soil Association that food on the menu is freshly prepared, free from undesirable additives and better for animal welfare.

The accolade was achieved by schools in Surrey through a close working partnership with purchasing and supply company Pelican Procurement Services and foodservice provider Bidvest 3663.  Together they have developed a proposition to provide Surrey’s schools with a range of products that have been sourced from suppliers with exceptional field to fork credentials in line with Food for Life standards.

The menus include local produce sourced by Pelican Procurement, such as yoghurt from a small independent Dairy farmer in a neighbouring county which Bidvest 3663 back hauls from the local supplier, ensuring no additional food miles are incurred. Other items include flour from Essex, and free-range eggs from a farm in Surrey which holds the Good Egg Award.

The schools also serve organic beef, pork and milk. All meat is UK farm assured and prepared to the specific requirements for Surrey, demonstrating the strong relationship Pelican Procurement has with manufacturers, farmers and food processors. A selection of fair trade products are also sourced to ensure a consistently high standard of quality, sustainability and ethical choices are available.

Paul Brown at Bidvest 3663 said: “The Food for Life programme is about more than just food on the plate; it considers where food comes from and how it’s grown, cooked and experienced. We have worked closely with Surrey Schools and Pelican Procurement to ensure that the gold standard has been met, and used our teams’ expertise to provide recipe inspiration in line with the latest food trends to create appetising dishes that appeal to pupils and help to boost uptake.”

Mark Capper at Surrey Commercial Services commented: “Food for Life accreditation gives great reassurance to parents that the food their children are eating at school is responsibly sourced and of a high standard. With the introduction of Universal Infant Free School Meals, we know that parents have been keen to understand how we will deliver consistent quality at a high volume. We are now able to prove that we can absolutely deliver on our promise to provide traceable, sustainable and nutritious food.

“Though we have achieved the gold standard, we are committed to continually developing creative, imaginative, flexible and nutritious menus using quality ingredients from Bidvest 3663 that pupils want to eat. As part of the menu offer we provide everything from traditional roasts to new flavours such as Mexican fajitas and Indian style dahl to inspire pupils to try and taste new and exciting flavours.”