Now you can give your catering staff the training they need to provide safe, nutritious meals without blowing the school budget. Online food safety courses from award-winning training company, VWA, start at just £25 + VAT, including City & Guilds certificate. Plus, each course consists of a series of easy-to-follow modules so staff can learn in their own time and at their own pace.

To celebrate the early success of Zing, the lightly sparkling ‘stealth health’ drink designed by teens for teens, Aimia Foods is giving pupils at the 500+ secondary schools that stock the drink the chance to win a BlackBerry PlayBook Tablet PC – 16GB worth £400.

To be entered into the weekly draws between 30 January and 30 April 2012 pupils will simply visit  and enter the last six digits of a Zing can barcode.

3663, one of the UK’s leading foodservice wholesale distributors, has announced the launch of the industry’s first delivered foodservice ordering app for iPhone and iPad devices. In response to the growing popularity of on-the-go orders and purchasing, 3663 has developed its new app to allow its customers to order whatever they need, whenever they want, to wherever they are.

Cucina is now catering for 37 different school restaurants up and down the country after winning seven new contracts to start the new term. The catering company’s fresh thinking has won over decision makers at Highdown School and Sixth Form Centre in Reading, Stockley Academy in Middlesex and Leigh Technology Academy, Longfield Academy, Wilmington Academy, and special school Milestone Academy, all in Kent.

Since Jamie Oliver hit Britain with his school dinner shock tactics and his anti-fast food campaigns, the school catering industry has slowly moved away from artery clogging meals. Someone who has embraced such a progression is school catering company Cucina’s Managing Director, Steve Quinn, who is committed to providing quality, healthy meals at all schools.

School and Further Education caterers looking to provide healthier meals can learn about nutrition and take an examination within just 2 to 3 hours. That’s the amount of time required to complete a new online course from Verner Wheelock Associates (VWA). The City and Guilds accredited ‘Nutrition, Healthier Food and Special Diets - Foundation’ is available through Virtual College (www.virtual-college.co.uk) and has a clear, modular format, so that trainees can learn in their own time and at their own pace.

Cucina is now catering for 37 different school restaurants up and down the country after winning seven new contracts to start the new term. The catering company’s fresh thinking has won over decision makers at Highdown School and Sixth Form Centre in Reading, Stockley Academy in Middlesex and Leigh Technology Academy, Longfield Academy, Wilmington Academy, and special school Milestone Academy, all in Kent.

Tim Slatter tells his story and plight to supply gluten free Birthday cakes for children’s parties throughout the UK. From October, his family business The Brilliant Bakers will have a "wheat free" choice on their entire range of exciting new party cakes...

The Enviro table from Gopak gives the user the opportunity to decide the style, colour and shape needed to match the dining room in schools and universities. It takes a few simple steps to create a bespoke Enviro table by selecting: the shape (square, rectangular, round or triangular); height; and colours for frame, table top and edging.

Victor Manufacturing has developed its gas operated Peer and Sceptre ranges of hot cupboards featuring the latest gas valve and burner technology. The plain top Peer range offers maximum storage capacity while Sceptre, wet or dry heat bains marie models come in four sizes with either heated or ambient cupboards below.

Lincat has been chosen to be an official supplier of the WorldSkills Cooking Competition 2011. As a result, 19 Lincat Opus OSC61 SelfCooking Centres and three Silverlink 600 electric salamander grills will be put through their paces by the world’s most talented young chefs as they compete for a WorldSkills gold medal.

A software solution has been developed by catering software specialist Fretwell-Downing Hospitality (FDH) to support schools that are managing, or preparing to manage, their own catering. Saffron Cuisine has been tailored specifically to help schools manage the two biggest influencers on this aspect of the business – cost control particularly in the wake of rising food inflation, and ensuring menus meet the nutrient standards.

Plymstock School, which is this year celebrating its centenary, is pleased to announce the completion of a £500,000 project to completely refurbish its student dining facilities into a modern and vibrant space, which incorporates eco solar panels to support the power and heating of the building. Innovate Services were appointed by Plymstock School to manage the refurbishment and to subsequently take over the day-to-day running of the school’s entire catering operation.

Enable parents to pay online for their child’s meals and school trips, and save money with sQuid ePayments. sQuid’s innovative, state-of-the-art cashless ePayment system has been well received by Local Authorities, catering managers, schools, colleges, universities and campus environments across the country.

At LACA 2011 Winterhalter focuses on the latest incarnation of its award-winning GS500 pass through dishwasher range. The one-button control panel makes them simple to use and the speed of the models – up to 70 racks per hour – means they can cope with hundreds of covers. The energy-saving features of the latest can save up to £1,250 in running costs every year, Winterhalter estimates.

A new eco-friendly vending machine from The Green Drinks Company, which offers substantial energy savings and the lowest carbon footprint of any cold drinks vending machine in the world, is being pioneered in schools following successful schools trials. The Pouchlink™ is 80% more energy efficient than a conventional cold drinks vending system as 90% of all drinks are water and it removes water from the supply chain.

FRIMA will feature its VarioCooking Center on Stand K41 at LACA 2011. An extremely energy efficient appliance for the professional kitchen, it can boil, fry and deep fry in one unit. Up to three times faster than traditional equipment, it is excellent for slow overnight cooking and trouble-free pressure cooking.

Rational is demonstrating its SelfCooking Center on stand K63 at LACA 2011. To keep up with the drive towards healthy eating in schools and colleges, it is designed to cook a variety of menu items with the minimum of effort and retain vital vitamins and nutrients as well full flavour, colour and texture.

When: 6th - 8th July 2011 Where: Hilton Birmingham Metropole

We take a look at the challenges facing school meals provision and the dangers of under estimating its worth - A recent study found that a predominantly processed food diet at the age of three is directly associated with a lower IQ at the age of eight and a half, compared to children who eat a healthier diet.

Milton Keynes is the first local authority to join Schools4Life. Building on the success and impact that the Department of Health’s Healthy Schools Programme has had over the past 11 years, Schools4Life is a nationally shared and locally led co-operative which supports schools to raise children and young people’s aspirations, drive healthy behaviour change and improve learning.

Victor has recently launched its new generation of energy-saving refrigerated well and display units. The new systems incorporated into the Synergy range of ‘drop-in’  refrigerated wells, decks, deli units and multi-tier displays have been re-engineered to slash electricity usage by up to 50% (compared to previous models) and meet the EN ISO 23953 standard, providing M1 cabinet class conditions and exceeding climate class 3 for product core temperature.

Food Partners has teamed up with leading wholesaler Palmer and Harvey to offer its hand crafted URBAN eat range of sandwiches, snacks, prepared fruit and salads to around 8,000 independent convenience stores across the UK.

Education catering expert Cucina has been providing Top Tips for Exam Success at its schools and academies to help stressed students. For example, it is putting up ‘Exam Buster’ top tips posters around schools giving students hints on how nutrition can help their exam performance.

Victor Manufacturing has cornered the market in hot holding mobile banqueting carts with its flexible Banquetline range available in single and two-door options.

Rational's Model 62 SelfCooking Center has been developed to offer increased cooking capacity without requiring extra height.

Lincat has added two powerful, high output electric chargrills to its heavy duty Opus 700 range of prime cooking equipment.

Sodexo has won a contract worth almost £2.5million to provide catering and hospitality services at New College Swindon in Wiltshire.

Meals will be provided for up to 7000 students and staff annually with a range of menus based on a variety of concepts including a Costa Coffee shop, Bowl hot food offer, Brunch all day breakfast concept, Street handheld snacks and a C Store retail shop.

Plymstock School has announced the completion of a project to completely refurbish its student dining facilities, which incorporates eco solar panels to support the power and heating of the building. 

When it comes to school catering, the most important objective today is to increase uptake. Without that you are preaching to an empty church and any attempts to encourage healthier eating are likely to fail because students are continuing to bring in their own packed lunches or choosing to eat elsewhere.

SUSO, one of the best selling soft drinks in secondary schools nationwide, is set for a Full Brand Relaunch in 2011. New SUSO, delivers new improved recipes for even better fruit taste and refreshment, in a new larger 330ml can, delivering maximum value-for-money for teens. SUSO’s distinctive can graphics, already hugely popular with young people, have been further evolved to deliver maximum relevance and appeal.

Winterhalter’s new STR Energy single-tank rack conveyor warewasher offers a large capacity in a small footprint. Just 1300mm long, it can process up to 110 racks per hour while special programmes ensure best wash results for every type of ware.

Victor Manufacturing, the catering industry’s favourite counter and servery manufacturer, has been successfully designing and supplying British-made bains marie and hot cupboards in an extensive range of configurations, for more than 50 years.

When ordered with a quartz heated curved glass gantry, Victor’s most popular product, the Crown general purpose bains marie hot cupboard can be easily configured to form a mobile carvery, ideal for smaller sites wanting to serve hot menus in a limited space.

Food Partners has added a brand new Southern Fried Chicken Wrap to its popular URBAN eat ‘food for now’ range.

The URBAN eat brand has attracted a strong following since its launch last year and has recently added a host of new lines to its portfolio of high quality handcrafted products in order to meet emerging consumer trends.

Once again specialist private and public education catering contractors, Alliance in Partnership (AiP) have achieved top marks from a local council Environmental Health Officer (EHOs) inspection.

Whitecross High School & Specialist Sports College in Hereford educates over 900 pupils, with AiP managing their catering provision for 11 years.

The EHO officers, from the Scores on the Doors scheme, visited the AiP kitchen on 14th March and awarded five out of five in accordance to the Food Safety Act 1990.

EcoPure Waters, the UK’s leading supplier of water purification systems for the hospitality and catering industry, is today launching an exciting new eco-friendly, multi-outlet concept that could precipitate an end to the tap water revolution.

‘One Green Bottle’ is a sustainable and potentially profitable solution for the on-trade, designed to help reverse the current consumer trend for ordering tap water. With a striking refillable bottle that appeals to the consumer’s conscience, ‘One Green Bottle’ is the first branded filtered drinking water that can be produced in-house.

Creed Foodservice, one of the leading delivered wholesalers to the education sector, is now offering Saffron Nutritional software from Fretwell-Downing Hospitality (FDH) to customers.

The move is designed give customers an integrated menu planning, nutritional analysis and ordering system to help schools implement the highest nutrition standards for their pupils. This service is available to both existing and new customers and is a specialist tool to help schools ensure that pupils get a healthy balanced diet.

As a leading delivered wholesaler to the education sector, Creed Foodservice knows what it takes to create exciting menus for schools that also meet nutritional standards.

Chris Creed, Managing Director of Creed, says that working closely with your wholesale partner is key to delivering tasty, nutritional menus and great value. He says: “We have always worked closely with our customers and deliver added value through this close collaboration. Recently we’ve taken this a step further through introducing the Saffron Nutritional software to our offering, enabling our customers to integrate their nutritional analysis with their ordering programmes.

Fred and Alison Capewell have run education catering company Class Catering for more than 12 years providing healthy and nutritious meals to over 70 schools throughout Worcestershire, Herefordshire, Gloucestershire and Shropshire. The award-winning caterer says it has always looked to be different; something it has achieved working alongside foodservice wholesaler Creed.

Ensuring that children and young people know about healthy eating, where their food comes from and how to cook, has become increasingly important. The British Nutrition Foundation (BNF) is delighted to launch new, free resources for all schools throughout the UK to support this essential learning - this is latest addition to our Food - a fact of life website.

Victor Manufacturing, the catering industry’s favourite counter and servery manufacturer, has been successfully designing and supplying British-made bains marie and hot cupboards in an extensive range of configurations, for more than 50 years.

In September 2009, a new £35 million building was constructed to provide a teaching and learning environment that underpins the Academy’s mission of enabling students to fulfil their potential. Earlier that summer it was decided a new caterer should be appointed to bring the catering service up to date and create a state-of-the-art dining area that students could really enjoy.

When we entered the school catering sector in 2006, we began by going back to basics: we asked who our customers were and what they wanted from a school caterer. We asked ourselves how best to serve 1,000 students in a twenty minute period. So began a journey that has rewritten the rules of school catering.

Victor Manufacturing’s popular serveries and counters, fitted with energy saving Synergy bains maries, heated ceramic tops and drop-in salad wells, have been specified for a major restaurant refurbishment at the Landau Forte College in Derby.

Bunzl Lockhart Catering Design Services (BLCDS) was called on to undertake the refurbishment, the largest part of which was new countering. A decision was reached for Victor to construct a new servery featuring two ‘mirrored’ counters and a specially designed fixed central drinks unit.

Around 3.5 million children take packed lunches to school every day and with only 1.1% meeting Government nutritional guidelines, education caterers providing daily hot and cold nutritionally analysed school meals play a significant role in the healthy development of pupils.

Alliance in Partnership (AiP), state and independent education catering contractors prepare 1000s of fresh meals every day across 144 schools nationwide.

Victor Manufacturing Ltd, the leading manufacturer of British made and engineered hot cupboards, counters and serveries, has a brand new web site designed to make searching for the right piece of kit so much easier.

The new site has been designed for easy navigation, with each category clearly signposted.  Users will find they can quickly access up to the minute information about any developments on Victor's product line-up, plus each entry is accompanied by a clear colour image for immediate identification. A down-loadable four-colour pdf brochure is also provided for each product range.