There’s brass in muck
Or so the saying goes, but not if you’re Compass providing school meals in Richmond-upon-Thames. In June Compass quit its contract after six years of a ten-year deal with the Borough saying that it was uneconomic without further investment. According to Caterer and Hotelkeeper (CH), ‘school meals uptake had dropped to around 23% under Compass’. The fact that it’s hard to make a decent meal and a reasonable profit in school meals isn’t exactly news, but what’s interesting is that Compass’s main rival Sodexho has now signed a £4.7m four-year deal to take over the catering in 39 primary and secondary schools in Richmond.
Sodexho says that not only will it meet the 2007 standards set by the DCSF, it has already met the 2008 nutrient-based standards – almost a year before they come into force.
What’s not clear is that Sodexho say, ‘The specially tailored offer for children will include the preparation of fresh salad crudités, fresh vegetables, fresh fruit wedges, and the baking of fresh bread each day, in each Richmond school kitchen.’ However, CH’s article says that one of the problems Compass had was that ‘schools there do not have any kitchens’. When we asked Sodexho, Clare Collins replied, ‘The schools in Richmond do have kitchens, however the capacity really varies from school to school. However, the capacity (at the various schools where we will provide the catering) is suitable for our requirements of cutting up fruit and veg and baking bread.’