Over the coming weeks, Public Sector Catering will be revisiting the remarkable stories behind the winners of the 2026 Public Sector Catering Awards.
Contract caterer ESS supports more than 250 military establishments and over 60 sites across police, secure environments, and central government throughout the UK. In 2025 it served over 18.5m meals to customers in these locations.
It has won this year’s accolade of Contract Caterer of the Year for the progress it has demonstrated across four key areas of the business – innovation, sustainability, developing its people, and delivering social value.
For example it has recently integrated wild venison into its defence menus, delivering substantial nutritional and environmental benefits. New dishes on the menu include venison double smash burger, venison burrito, and venison sausage Lyonnaise, as well as venison-based versions of customer favourites including Bolognese, lasagne, chilli-con-carne and madras are proving very popular with customers.
The meat’s low fat content and nutrient density make it a great choice for those wanting to include some red meat in their diet. Since switching, ESS has reduced total fat in menus by 1,843kg and saturated fat by 846kg, as well as increased total protein by 245kg.
The move is also delivering significant greenhouse gas emissions reductions, with some dish’s emissions lowered by 50% compared to the beef equivalent.
Other menu innovation includes new concepts such as a Kebab Kitchen with gyros as the centrepiece, a ‘Pie Shop’ range with many plant-based options, Detroit pizzas on a focaccia base, and authentic Sri-Lankan, Thai and Northern Indian dishes.
On sustainability ESS has partnered with community-sharing app Olio to redistribute good-to-eat surplus food to local people, rather than throwing it away. Starting by donating pre-packed products, fruit and vegetables, ESS last year introduced cooked food collections capturing surplus food after lunch and dinner services, packaging it into single and family-sized containers with allergen labels, ready for collection by Olio.
To date, the partnership has redistributed 47,167kg of food, the equivalent of 99,733 meals, to help 5,074 households fed. The scheme won Let’s Recycle ‘Food Waste Initiative of the Year’ at the Awards for Excellence in Recycling & Waste Management 2025.
And in the café at Navy Command Headquarters (HMS Excellent), serving thousands of hot drinks monthly single-use cups have been eliminated with the introduction of a 100% reusable cups policy, saving 52,649 single-use cups, equating to 0.94 tonnes of waste.
ESS has also developed bespoke L1/L2 engagement events including a two-day sustainable food workshop with discussions, practical sessions and plant-based street foods challenge.
Sessions have included identifying local ingredients, learning about farming and agroforestry, and a chocolate-making and decoration course – all designed to give apprentices experiences they wouldn’t have otherwise.
In addition, ESS has had two finalists in the Compass Chef of the Year, and executive chef Simon Coulter won the UK final of the World Tapas Competition.
The company’s Junior Chef Academy programme, a ten-week cookery course provided by its chefs as an after-school club, has now seen 190 schoolchildren complete it over the past five years. Nine young people have gone on to join ESS as apprentices.
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