National School Meals Week Campaign 2020

Totally Local Company are proud to have supported the National School Meals Week during November 2020. The campaign is hosted by LACA, the Lead Association for Caterers in Education, they are the Lead body representing the schools catering industry.

This annual programme of events gives our catering teams the opportunity to engage with schools to not only showcase their great culinary skills in the creation of delicious menus, but to also celebrate healthy school lunches with the education sector we service.

2020 was undoubtedly a challenging year for us all, but we worked together in partnership to ensure the children and students enjoyed a variety of delicious school meals to fuel healthy minds. This national campaign not only supports the school’s curriculum and learning, it supports local British Food at the same time.

Our catering teams worked closely with the teachers and pupils and encouraged them to participate in a range of activities and competitions. The activities were linked to the schools weekly menu choices during the school week. These included:

Monday menu: ‘Go Meat Free Monday’ offering a Vegan menu as well as vegetarian friendly. This included tantalising sweet and sour styled vegetables and dairy free chocolate cookies.

Tuesday menu: ‘the School Lunch Oscars’ and Competition. This proved to be a very popular activity and the children from Norris Bank Primary School were encouraged to vote for their favourite meal by entering our competition to draw their favourite main meal and dessert.

We invited our CEO, David Hughes to judge the competition entries. This was no easy task with so many designs received from Norris Bank Primary School. First, second, and third prize-winners were awarded to children based on their creative skills and most popular menu choice.

The winning menu included a main meal of homemade pizza, potato wedges, and chopped salad. The most popular dessert selected was chocolate cake. This delicious menu was served to the children at their Tuesday lunch session, which they all absolutely loved.

Prize winners are; first prize, Helena Cassidy, second prize, Olive Wright, and third prize, Ella Marlow. All of the winners were awarded vouchers for their hard work and creativity.

Wednesday menu: Supported the ‘National Roast Dinner’, which is also a keen favourite menu choice of many of the children.

Thursday menu: Promoted the ‘Great British School Lunch’ Children were invited from several of our schools to enter our ‘Food Discovery Competition’. This included a quiz and colouring competition. We received some amazing entries this year as children from school from Hazel Grove, Mersey Vale, Thorn Grove, Meadow Bank, and St Thomas’s, Marriot Street, Primary School entered the competition.

The competition entries were judged on their correct answers to the quiz and their colouring skills. The winners are: first prize, Megan Miller, Year 3, Meadow Bank Primary School, second prize, Hafsa Khan, Year 4, Thorn Grove Primary School, and third prize was awarded to Scarlet Crowther-Roberts, Year 4, Hazel Grove Primary School.

Friday’s themed menu gave the children and teachers an opportunity to say ‘Thank You to Our Key Workers’. Fish and Chips were a key favourite on the menu, which are loved by most!

This celebration was all about key workers and gave the teachers and children the opportunity to say thank you to our catering teams.

Many of our employees are key workers and our Catering teams have worked tirelessly
throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Even when many schools were closed, our teams continued to provide school lunches and lunch boxes for hundreds of children to provide a lifeline to ensure they did not go hungry.

The children at Oak Tree Primary school teamed together to produce an amazing huge ‘Thank You card’ for their Head Cook in Charge Jenette Wynne and her team.

This was a fantastic gesture from the children as they created the card from scratch and all personally signed it.

Jenette Wynne and her team received a special ‘Thank You’ card from the children at Oak Tree Primary School.

‘Special Recognition’ certificates were presented to the Catering teams in participating schools.