Interreg

The staff restaurant at Whitman Laboratories has put sustainability on the menu by reducing meat and increasing vegetables and pulses in their popular meat-based meals. The contract caterer, Gather and Gather, already offer a daily plant-based option, but they wanted to take further steps to reduce their carbon impact, and contribute to better health for the planet, and for their customers.

Norse Catering, a Norfolk and Suffolk based caterers are enhancing their meal offer by incorporating more climate friendly practices. Joining the Cool Food Pro project as a pilot site has enabled them to adopt additional sustainable working practices to further reduce their carbon impact.  

Healthy, nutritious meals have always been a priority for Norse. They use high quality ingredients, much of which is also locally sourced, to provide seasonal and nutritionally balanced meals in schools, colleges, care homes and businesses. They currently hold the Soil Association Food for Life Served Here Silver award for their use of ethical ingredients that support the local economy and are better for health, nature and our climate.

Peterborough-based Thomas Deacon Education Trust (TDET) puts forward five schools to track the environmental impacts of reducing meat and increasing vegetables and pulses across their menus. The Trust already celebrate meat-free days but aspire to increase their vegan and vegetarian offers for the health of their pupils and the planet.

Education catering specialists, Caterlink are working with one of their primary school sites as a pilot in Cambridgeshire to reduce the amount of food left over at the counter after lunch time service.

By looking at baseline waste values at Isle of Ely Primary School, they have set out key areas to work on that will result in less food going in the bin, with a view to roll this out across the business.

Brooke Primary School’s catering is independently managed by the school’s principal chef, which, with the support of the staff and the Cool Food Pro Calculator, is working on their environmentally friendly journey by implementing meat-free Mondays and tackling food waste from the dining hall.

Littleport Community Primary’s menus are managed by Norse Catering who are dedicated to reducing plate waste through actions applied to mains and sides. All while continuing to provide a great lunchtime service to approximately 200 students a day

Hempnall Primary school catering is provided by Norse catering and the kitchen acts as a central hub providing food for Hempnall Primary and three other local schools in Norfolk. The school has an executive head who is keen to reduce the amount of food waste produced in the dining room at Hempnall, with a view to extending this to the other schools that are currently catered to

The Cool Food Pro team recently delivered a whole school assembly and workshop to year five and six pupils at Skelton Primary School. They taught pupils about the real value of food, highlighting the energy, water, people and fuel used to grow, process and transport food