Aberdeen City Council achieve Bronze nine years running
Aberdeen City Council’s catering team are celebrating after the council renewed its Food for Life Served Here Bronze award for the 9th year in a row.
The council, which first received the Bronze award in 2015, is now serving 11,095 nutritious, sustainable and locally-sourced Food for Life meals in its 47 primary schools and 11 secondary schools every day. That’s over 2.5 million meals per year, meeting the Food for Life standard.
Local authorities receive the award following an independent assessment and inspection to ensure the food being served in schools across the local authority is good for pupils’ health, good for the environment and good for the local economy. The scheme is run by Soil Association Scotland and funded by Scottish Government.
As the country faces a cost-of-living crisis, catering teams are under increased pressure to balance costs. School meals have become more important than ever as a nutritional safety net for pupils whose families might be struggling. At the same time, the need to tackle climate change through serving food that is sustainably produced remains paramount.
Aberdeen City Council has demonstrated what can be achieved despite difficult circumstances. Holding the bronze award since 2015, Aberdeen City catering teams ensure that a minimum of 75% of dishes are freshly prepared from unprocessed ingredients. Meals are also free from undesirable trans fats, sweeteners and additives, and use free range eggs, higher welfare meat and ingredients from sustainable and ethical sources.
The Bronze award recognises that a minimum of 75 percent of dishes are freshly prepared from unprocessed ingredients. Meals are also free from undesirable trans fats, sweeteners, additives and all genetically modified ingredients. Catering teams also use free range eggs, higher welfare meat and ingredients from sustainable and ethical sources.
Susan Bailey, catering adviser at the council, says that achieving the Bronze award was “very straightforward as most aspects were already in place.”
The council already had a contract with a local butcher, Gordon McWilliam (Aberdeen) Ltd, which meant that even before achieving the Bronze award, the meat was locally-sourced and farm assured. However, Susan said: “We had developed some bad habits and the award has been a fantastic way to get catering staff cooking again and paying attention to quality.”
For example, the original hot dog served was tinned, which did not comply with the requirement for 75% of meals to be freshly prepared. Rather than removing hot dogs from the menu, catering staff worked on a solution with McWilliam, the butcher, which now makes the sausage meat for the hot dog product from scratch.
John Landragon, catering manager, notes: “Some of our academies are in the city centre where there are lots of food outlets and lots of choice, so the challenge is to attract the pupils in the middle school to stay and eat in school.”
The set menu for primary schools has been replicated for secondary schools, offering a daily soup, two main dishes (one of which is vegetarian), and a dessert. ACC have also provided a ‘library’ of ‘grab and go’ items which meet the award criteria. Staff who are ordering for their school can use this ‘freshly prepared’ list to easily see how to source the right product.
Susan describes that it is not as hard as it might seem at first: "Having more than just the set menu does make it a bit more complicated, but it is not difficult to find freshly-prepared and unprocessed items. It just needs a bit of thought to start with."
Aberdeen City Council Education and Childrens’ Services Committee convener, Councillor Martin Greig, said: “It is reassuring to receive the Food for Life Served Here Bronze award for the ninth time in a row. The health and wellbeing of pupils is a key priority. It is important to ensure hot meals are provided to high standards."
Aberdeen City Council Education and Childrens’ Services Committee vice convener, Councillor Jessica Mennie, said: “The bronze award is an accolade to our hard-working school catering services team which ensure the meals served in Aberdeen schools are good for pupils’ health, good for the environment and good for the local economy, as well as being tasty.”
Sarah Duley, Head of Food, Food for Life Scotland, said: “Congratulations to Aberdeen City Council for renewing their Food for Life Served Here Bronze Award for another year. This is a huge achievement and shows that staff are dedicated to providing pupils with a hot, nutritious meal that’s healthy, freshly prepared and sustainably produced.
“We are delighted to recognise Aberdeen City Council for continuing to put more good food on school plates and for supporting Scotland’s food businesses and Good Food Nation ambitions.”