Civica
A complete solution for catering in schools
We understand that one of the biggest challenges in any education catering operation is maintaining compliance and food safety in an efficient and cost-effective way. We can help.
Our smart software helps schools, local authorities and catering providers reduce food waste, including CO2 impacts, alongside promoting healthy eating, digital meal ordering and the management of safe, compliant catering operations.
We design our software to suit a wide range of organisations. Whether you’re a local authority, an individual school, a multi-academy trust, contract caterer or a large university, you’ll manage your meal service and gain insights into how to keep improving.
Together, our Catering Management software, Cashless Catering and parent payment options deliver peace of mind, help you be more productive and improve experience for those using your services.
Why choose Civica’s school catering software?
- Drive efficiencies from purchase to payment
- Manage escalating food costs and reduce food waste
- Use digital meal pre-order to inform stock management, save money and reduce waste
- Keep pupils with allergies safe by automatically restricting their menu choices using data from your MIS
- Encourage healthy eating with attractive meal deals
- Easily share nutritional information and pupil menu choices with parents
- Ensure safe and secure payment with the latest cashless technologies and ID management
- Simplify menu planning and recipe creation
- Support sustainable purchasing and CO2 reduction goals
- Accurately manage FSM delivery
- Reduce risk, costs and administration.
Our software is making lunchtimes faster, safer and more cost-effective for more than 1,500 schools and colleges across the UK.
Key solutions for schools include: ·
Our paperless kitchen management helps ensure safe, compliant school catering operations. Civica Catering Management brings together all the individual elements of the catering operation in one central cloud-based repository, streamlining stock control, purchasing, menu engineering and cleaning/hygiene tasks including HACCP compliance. It also offers a range of sustainability benefits, including a carbon foot printing module to support CO2 reporting and reductions, as well as measures to reduce food waste which include easier reporting of weight, value and ingredients of individual menu items.
Keep paper out of the kitchen with Civica Check, our digital kitchen management app that powers simple sustainable processes and smarter ways of working. Check integrates seamlessly with Civica Catering Management and has been shown to deliver an 80% reduction in paper and ink and save 2 hours per kitchen per day.
Revolutionise your menu planning and easily share allergen, nutritional and CO2 information with your customers with the Civica Wellbeing Portal. This includes a public-facing URL where users can access menu details from anywhere.
Simplify menu creation and monitor performance across complex multi-site catering operations with Civica Dynamic Menu Planner. Developed in conjunction with one of the world’s largest contract caterers, our mobile-friendly solution lets chefs get creative in the kitchen, while you stay in control of the overall offer.
Our smart cloud software and fast modern tills streamline mealtimes, facilitate better take up of free school meals and help manage individual dietary requirements. With features like pre-ordering, menu scheduling and meal deals, students and parents can gain better visibility of their food choices. Comprehensive forecasting and stock management also helps to reduce waste and generate savings. We integrate with your MIS and payment provider and provide digital parental payment options.
For grab ‘n’ go efficiency, choose our popular CivicaEats pre-order mobile app, shown to increase uptake of school meals by 50%. This allows secondary pupils to order meals in advance, so the kitchen only prepares the meals required - minimising waste and driving sustainability, whilst supporting accurate management and ordering of stock too.
Partner Q&A with Andrew Pond, Business Development Director
1. What is your school food unique selling point?
School food caterers often refer to three USP’s within our catering management solutions;
• Trust & accuracy
• Flexibility
• Commitment to the sector
2. What new products/services have you launched or are looking to launch in 2024
Our solutions are continually updated and enhanced in line with global advances in technology and changes/demands within the catering industry, during 2024 we have:
• Continued to migrate key functionality onto an on/offline mobile solution has delivered unrivalled efficiencies and simplified the process
• Provided CO2 data to support Scope 3 obligations
• Improved ingredient profiling with direct supplier updates
As we near the end of 2024 the launch of our new Cashless Cloud solution already has been over-subscribed
3. What do you to support the school food service
As a global GovTech champion, we make software that helps deliver critical services for citizens all around the world. With over 25 years of innovation within the education sector, our smart, cloud-based catering solutions are designed to support school food services to ensure pupils receive a healthy, nutritious, safe and cost-effective meal every day.
4. How can LACA and school food operators support your organisation
We have supported the school food services sector for over 25 years and there has never been a mor challenging time for caterers where the use of technology will have a tangible positive impact on the future provision of the service. To achieve this on-going, open and honest engagement is going to help us continue to develop the technologies, functionality and services needed to support LACA and school food operators.
5. What is your first memory of school food?
As a 70’s child I am amazed at the range of dishes now available to pupils and the ever increasing standards achieved by cooks and chefs across the four nations. My primary years were in Somerset with school in a converted tythe barn where all activities, including lunch were, held in the single open plan room. We were not allowed out until all of your lunch had been eaten and recall being kept inside until I’d eaten mash potato and gravy that was rapidly getting cold.