Based in Chester, Dee Banks School has 145 pupils, aged 2 to 19 years with Severe Learning Difficulties (SLD) or Profound and Multiple Learning Difficulties (PMLD). Dee Banks prides itself on being a school where every student matters, but for years the school had been unhappy with their local authority catering provider, which had left them struggling to achieve the variety and quality needed to cater to their pupils’ needs.
The Challenge: A Catering System That Wasn't Working
However, finding a new catering provider proved to be quite the challenge explains Business Manager Kate Hubbard:
“Being a school that has a wide age range of pupil, we were struggling with everything from portion size to nutrition. The quality, consistency and menu choice were extremely poor, and it was really apparent that the children weren’t enjoying the meals. Having profoundly disabled children, it was difficult to make sure they were getting meals suitable for their dietary requirements and for years they were just stuck with a jacket potato for lunch. Every week, it was a different issue and even getting the really simple things right was difficult for them.”
Finding a Solution with apetito
Switching meal provider is a big step for schools to take and the transition to a new supplier can be daunting but it was a step the school were ready to take says Kate:
“We desperately wanted and knew we needed a change, but we had been struggling for years to look for a different catering provider. Because we are quite a small school lots of catering providers wouldn’t even consider taking us on because they’d be working at a loss, so we found we were always hitting a brick wall.”
“We first heard of apetito when we got a flyer through the post. It piqued our interest because the envelope was handwritten, and we always get excited by anything handwritten. We hadn’t heard of apetito before, but its pre-prepared meals solution sounded like it could help solve the problems we were having, so we thought it would be worth having a conversation about what apetito could offer us.”
As the UK’s first premium pre-prepared school meals solution, apetito provides schools with high-quality, nutritious pre-prepared frozen dishes, which can be easily cooked and served in-house.
“Back in July 2024, after meeting with apetito, we agreed to a month-long trial to see whether it would work, and it was just amazing. What really stood out to us was the ease, variety and quality. We officially began with apetito in September and are going to be rolling it out on our new site in February.”
Finance Manager, Kim Williams and Facilities Manager, Vikki Mitchell worked closely with Kate and played a key role in bringing apetito on board. Speaking about the transition Kim says:
“When it came to introducing apetito, the whole process ran smoothly. We had the apetito team come in and prepare taster sessions for staff to enjoy, which was a hit! We felt 100% supported right from the start and didn’t feel overwhelmed at any point when being trained on how to use the apetito system. The passion that came through from the apetito team reassured us that they would be with us every step of the way.”
Making Lunchtime Enjoyable
From the outset, the school were impressed with apetito’s ability to deliver the exceptional nutritional value, choice and variety, with the quality of ingredients, taste and flavour they wanted for their school meals explains Kate:
“The pupils now love lunchtimes. We now find it so much easier to cater for all the pupils’ needs. The kids are really enjoying the food and one of the things we’re really pleased with the variety of choice. In the first week we served Salmon Tagine and the kids devoured it. We would never think they would even touch salmon, let alone love it. They also love all the vegetarian options and are enjoying a real variety of dishes that they would never have tried before.”
“For us another one of the real benefits is how easy it is to ensure each pupil gets the amount of food they need. We now have a better understanding of what a balanced, healthy portion should look like, and our pupils are going home with full tummies. Given that we have such a wide range of ages at Dee Banks including young adults, being able to ensure portion sizes meet the needs of our pupils is important to us. We are now easily able to cook enough food, so if the pupils want to come up for seconds they can. Since we’ve introduced apetito, the students really are liking lunchtimes and we’ve seen amongst the older students especially, that they’re far more settled.”
Vikki recalls one moment when apetito was first introduced that really stood out to her:
“When we began the trial with apetito, the children were very inquisitive. We had one child who didn't really eat a lot of food at school. But one day soon after apetito started, he came into the hall when we were serving, and he asked for a second helping, which he'd never done before. It was really lovely because it was just nice to see all the children eating and actually enjoying their food.”
Dee Banks now have access to more than 200 different dishes, which can easily be selected online using the ‘my apetito ordering platform explains Kim:
“Pam, our account manager gave us training on the platform and now we find the creation of menus one of the bests bits of partnering with apetito. We have a variety to choose from and hand pick our menus with what we think our children will enjoy eating. The beauty of it is we have been able to change and tweak as we go. Our children have sensory and texture issues, but there is something to suit every child’s palette.”
“Pam also showed us apetito’s nutridata app, which can be used to check the ingredients and nutrition of every dish, which gives help to parents that added peace of mind, especially for pupils with allergies.”
Meeting the Needs of Every Child
All of apetito’s meals are cooked using same recipe, in the exact same way every single time. This means pupils can be assured that our dishes will look and taste identical every time they are served and that’s made a real difference to Dee Banks explains Kate:
“The consistency of the meals from apetito is also a real benefit. Our pupils like to have things the same. They rely on that, and it makes them feel safe. apetito’s dishes taste and look the same every single time. Having that same quality every time they have that meal really helps our children and encourages them to eat.
“Another advantage of apetito is that many of our pupils prefer to have the different elements of their food not touching. With apetito each element of the meal is packaged and cooked individually, which means it is easy for catering teams to serve food in a way that suits every individual child’s needs, and this reassures the pupils because they know they’re able to get meals the way they would like, and they enjoy them more because of that.”
A number of Dee Banks PLMD students use apetito’s world-leading texture modified range, which helps people and children with swallowing difficulties enjoy mealtimes again. Each meal is carefully prepared to provide the nutrients they need in portion sizes and textures that suit their needs says Kate:
“One of the most significant impacts of our partnership with apetito is that our profoundly disabled pupils now get a choice of a meal every day, that’s the right texture for them to eat it and most importantly their choice. Whereas before, they didn't enjoy the food, now they get to taste lots of different flavours and try a real variety of dishes.”
Catering Made Easy
Dee Banks has a small kitchen team of two who are responsible for ordering, cooking and serving the meals explains Vikki:
“Cooking and serving the meals is a really simple process to follow and the kitchen team have had the support of Pam through it all. If we ever have any questions or issues, we just ring her and she’s on hand to help. If I was to describe the process of introducing and using apetito, I would just say it's just been so smooth and easy.”
“We don't have to worry about if the kitchen staff are off sick. Pam has trained us all on how to cook and the serve the meals, so we can just go into the kitchen, put the meals into the oven and go back to our jobs whilst they’re cooking. This is a real benefit as the impact of staff sickness is one less stress we have to deal with and you find that no matter who's in the kitchen, you still get the same consistency of quality.”
A Real Partnership
“The pupils really enjoy the food and that’s what is important to us” says Kate. “The quality and choice of food with apetito is really good. I would recommend apetito to other specialist schools. It is a simple catering option that provides really good quality meals and accommodates the needs of a variety of pupils within a SEND setting. Everyone now looks forward to lunch time because apetito has given us a real range of consistent and tasty meals to offer our pupils. We’re now able to cater for all our students’ requirements with ease. Simply put, it just takes a headache out of catering.”