Harrison Catering - facts & figures

Founded in 1994, Harrison Catering Services is an independent, family-owned company providing contract catering in multiple sites across the UK. Currently over 100 clients enjoy a Harrison food service, with close to 100,000 meals being served each day by over 2,400 staff across more than 400 sites. Harrison provides the catering services in 38 business and industry sites throughout the UK, in a wide range of environments from company headquarters and prestigious office locations through to call centres, warehouses and factories. Harrison provides school meals to over 80,000 pupils in primary and secondary education. Across all of their school contracts, Harrison has seen a tremendous increase in the update of their school meals. The average uptake for 2009/10 in the Bexley primary schools contact reached 27%, representing a 59% increase in uptake since the Harrison contract began three years ago. The current uptake for the primary schools in Wandsworth is 57.4% - a 2.3% improvement in meal uptake versus last year. Ealing schools have seen a 14.5% increase in meal numbers in 2009/10, taking the overall uptake ahead of the national average for the first time. In Lambeth, the average uptake for the first three months of the financial year 2010/2011 was 71.6% putting the borough in the top 5 of UK meal uptake (School Food Trust). Harrison has recently switched its entire business over to British sourced Free-range eggs. In total, this equates to 2.5 million eggs a year and highlights their commitment to quality. A number of exciting initiatives have also been introduced in schools to ensure continued success across all contracts: • Kids taste panels have been created to guarantee that all menus are child friendly and will be eaten, rather than left behind and thrown away. • Student Survival cookery courses have been launched to give pupils a healthy start before they head off to University or College. The course aims to equip pupils with the skills to create a nutritious and balanced diet, so parents will be able to relax a bit more when their children leave home for the first time. • Healthy eating reward schemes have been designed to increase school meal uptake too. Children can collect points every time they eat lunch - the healthier their lunch, the more points they accumulate and the bigger the prize they win. Commenting, Gareth Harrison, Director Client Services, said: "A high quality catering service is crucial in today's competitive school market. At Harrison Catering Services, we always work hard to create quick and easy lunchtime ideas that are in compliance with nutritional standards, whilst still providing pupils with a wide range of delicious healthy choices that are prepared on site by trained cooks every day. "In order to fulfil our high standards and targets, Harrison Catering work hand in hand with each individual school to make sure they are given the opportunity to personalise their menus and input their ideas. This helps to create interesting and appealing lunch menus that are cost-effective, nutritious and easy to prepare. "The results of these core values are reflected in our school meal uptake figures and shows that our creative initiatives are encouraging more and more children to choose our school meals."