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Littleport Community Primary School joins Cool Food Pro to reduce food waste in their 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
The challenge
Littleport Community Primary School saw a high amount of food being wasted and decided to take on the challenge of its reduction. This started with a visit from PECT’s Health and Wellbeing Lead, Karen Igho, and Cool Food Pro’s Project Co-ordinator, Ana Gouveia, to complete a three day audit between 15th- 17th November 2022.
The results of the audit showed that a total of 27.45 kg of food was wasted, with the majority of waste occurring in the dining hall.
Taking action
Littleport Community Primary School have taken on board the recommendations proposed by PECT to focus mostly on the dining room as the main producer of waste. Being hands on, they involved all staff in working towards this reduction, as well as the students, specifically the school council and the Hungry Heron Club, as a way of supporting the weigh-ins and in raising awareness across all the students.
The main food groups that get wasted are Jacket potato, Tuna and Garlic bread, so the caterers have decided to take action. They chose to apply 2 specific measures:
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Reduction of portion sizes in mains and sides of at least 25%
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Be part of the 'Eat Them to Defeat Them' Campaign to help reduce the waste on sides
The school has also taken on the task of encouraging their students to eat all of their mains before allowing gthe children to move on to dessert. This has required the teachers to be available and around during the lunchtime service.
Through the use of the CoolFoodPro Website and calculator, it has been great to see the improvements made from November 2022 through until March 2023. Just by making these small changes, Littleport Community Primary School have managed to save 12.81 (kg CO2e) and £17.00, which is a huge improvement. The aim is for Littleport to continue referring to the CoolFoodPro member’s portal to support them by utilising the downloadable resources.
It has been a fantastic opportunity for our school council to work collaboratively with Cool Food Pro. Their team supported our school with a range of resources and ideas to help reduce food waste in school and at home too!
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