SCHOOL KITCHEN AND
CATERING EQUIPMENT SOLUTIONS

The London School Kitchens Forum in July, organised jointly by PKL and the Local Authority Caterers Association (LACA), addressed a number of key issues facing catering in schools. Delegates included catering and facilities management specialists from a number of local authorities, as well as representatives from associations and central government.

A key focus of the day was to consider the opportunities to improve catering facilities within the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) and Primary Capital Programme initiatives, stimulating lively discussions between speakers and delegates.

The first speaker was new LACA Chair, Beverley Baker, who noted that BSF projects often give little thought to improving catering facilities, despite the wealth of scientific evidence linking the quality of dining facilities with learning, behaviour and wellbeing. “An important part of our education vision is that all children should have access to a pleasant dining environment, seated and in the company of others,” she explained.

She also pointed out that if these aspirations are to be met, there will be a requirement for greater capacity for cooking, serving, dining, clean up and changing areas. It would make sense, she suggested, to take this into account when building or refurbishing schools.

Addressing this issue from a different perspective, Simon Lucas, a Partner at built asset consultancy EC Harris supported this view, calling for “fully joined up thinking around the whole eating experience”. He went on to emphasise the importance of understanding how people interact with these areas of the building, and suggested that better use of dining space could often be achieved through changes in timetabling.

Continuing the 'Joined up thinking theme', Linda Smith of the School Food Trust outlined the current issues for schools regarding how a lack of planning and consultation is resulting in spaces that do not maximise use and efficiencies.

Linda highlighted how the School Food Trust is working with key stakeholders involved in the design of kitchen and dining spaces to establish joined up working, sharing of good practice and the development of the necessary tools and support to keep kitchen and dining spaces at the forefront of the agenda throughout the various capital programmes.

Concluding the formal part of the day, PKL’s Lee Vines presented a number of options for addressing many of these issues within financial and space constraints. He explained how pre-fabricated kitchen and dining facilities can be introduced quickly and cost-effectively - on a temporary or permanent basis - to either extend existing facilities or introduce new facilities to schools without a kitchen.

He also discussed the opportunities for using contract hire rather than outright purchase as a cost-effective procurement method for kitchen equipment – either individual items of equipment or entire kitchens. Using the company’s KitchenFM service, this enables the costs to be met through revenue budgets rather than capital budgets, with all of the financial risk relating to the equipment being transferred to PKL.

If you are interested in attending the next School Kitchens forum, please email us at postbox@schoolkitchens.com