Menus in schools have increasingly embraced the idea of ‘meat-free Mondays’ in recent years, putting the education sector at the cutting edge of the response to calls from health experts and environmental campaigners to reduce the amount of meat in our diets.
The trend was neatly encapsulated in the ‘20% less but better meat’ drive adopted by the national public sector catering organisations in collaboration under the PSC100 Group banner in March 2020. Now the growing popularity of plant-based food has been taken to the next stage with the decision by Our Lady of Sion School in Worthing to award its catering contract to industry newcomer Plant-Based School Kitchen.
Since it started in January this year, pupils at the fee-paying day school for children from three years old to sixth form have been eating teriyaki broccoli with tofu and rice noodles, katsu curry, and meatballs with pasta – all created from plant-based ingredients.
Head teacher Steven Jeffery decided change was needed when he was formally appointed to the role in February last year. For a number of years previously the school’s kitchens had effectively been mothballed and packed lunches – either delivered in or brought from home – were the order of the day.
He says: “As I considered the future of hot food for Sion, I was keen to find something exciting, attractive ... and good for our consumers and the planet. Plant-Based School Kitchen is a new enterprise from Gary and Anna Hardley of the Vegan Street Food Company. After sampling their delicious and highly nutritious food, I and others were highly impressed with the presentation, flavours and aromas.
“With governments across the globe encouraging eating less meat and consuming more plant-based meals, there is also great focus on bringing plant-based kitchens into schools and other establishments. Ethical eating and farming is vital to the longevity of the planet and feeding children in schools has too often been about profit rather than nutrition. As a school that promotes ethics and consideration for people, animals and the planet upon which we live, it is important that Sion reflects these values, hence the introduction of the Plant-Based School Kitchen.”
Gary and Anna Hardley, who run Plant-Based School Kitchen, are also the husband and wife team behind Worthing’s thriving Vegan Street Food Company, an outlet that sells its own freshly prepared vegan and gluten-free-food for takeaway or served on its outside tables.
Last year they were happily involved in developing the High Street venue when one of their regular customers, who has a child at Sion, mentioned the school was looking for an on-site caterer to start cooking and serving hot food for pupils.
Gary says: “Our Vegan Street Food Company shop was opened in August 2020 as a café and takeaway selling freshly-cooked meals, ordered online. We had started it because we had found out for ourselves how difficult it was to get the sort of food we wanted, and we felt it was important that we made a difference for other people.
“Our food is 100% vegan and 100% gluten-free, which is a surprisingly difficult combination to find. Do you know how many times we’ve come across a vegan burger served on a wheat bun? So often the vegan options are not gluten-free and the gluten-free options are not vegan.
“About half our products are plant-based and half allergen-free and 90% of the products we sell we make ourselves. That way we can take out of any recipes the nuts, gluten or any of the other allergens. And what really helped Vegan Street Food Company take off was after we were accredited by Coeliac UK, because they have a Facebook group and that quickly helped spread the word.
“We haven’t done a lot of advertising, a lot of our custom has been word-of-mouth. There was definitely a latent demand for it. Without realising it we had opened something that was quite niche but that a lot people wanted and couldn’t find.”
That success meant that when the school first started looking for a caterer he and wife Amma were too busy to consider making a bid for it.
Gary continues: “But he had no takers and later re-posted the invitation to bid for the contract and we then felt it might be worth talking to them. So we met the head and the senior management team and then arranged a tasting with four of them a couple of weeks later.
“We followed this up with a tasting for 70 families – including about 350 children. The menu was really just school classics like bangers and mash, meatballs and pasta, shepherd’s pie, chicken tikka masala, brownies and rice krispies cakes – but all of them plant-based. This all happened in August and they were all very excited about it and we were given the go-ahead.
“Since then we’ve been clearing everything with the Environmental Health Officer to make sure it’s all safe and legal. All the equipment had to be replaced, so we have also invested time and money in refitting the kitchen. By December we were ready enough to serve a vegan Christmas lunch for 95 children. And then on January 12th we launched the regular service. There were meatballs and pasta on the menu first day.”
From the school’s perspective, head Steven Jeffery says: “With due consultation to students and parents, the conclusion was made that a plant-based kitchen would be the most inclusive and conscious option for hot meals, with the alternative opportunity for parents to provide non-vegan packed lunches at their own discretion.”
He insists the decision does not in any way mean the school is ‘anti-meat’.
“What we’re saying is this is an opportunity to really explore what plant-based food is all about, how it can have a positive impact on the environment and how it can be used as part of education.
“We are a school, so let’s educate over lunch. But we’re not anti-meat-eating either so the parents have bought into that and said, well, our children could eat meat for breakfast or in the evening meal and more and more parents are actually saying, can we have the recipes?”
Gary Hardley agrees, adding that most parents have been very supportive of the idea of a plant-based food service.
“Of course you get a few posts on social media from people saying they wouldn’t send their children in to ‘eat lettuce leaves for lunch’. Most people understand, though, that plant-based food is not like that now – if it ever was. You only need to look at the vegan food options on offer when you go shopping - there’s lots of choice.
“We did have a few parents asking about vitamin B12, for example, which is needed for red blood cell production and typical sources are meat, fish, eggs and dairy products. But it is also found in fortified nutritional yeast and foods like green leafy vegetables such as spinach. So, for example, we recently served spinach with our Chinese New Year teriyaki broccoli with tofu and rice noodles.
“In many ways the children are more accepting of the idea and more knowledgeable about the environment than we are. The ultimate aim for PBSK is to provide a tasty, healthy, sustainable and ‘safe’ menu. We are now working with developers in Denmark to produce a menu which is based on organic produce and will eliminate all major allergens. We are also working closely with the local council in a combined effort to ensure a minimum carbon footprint and low food wastage is a top priority of this project.”
Head Steven Jeffery says he’s already very pleased with the results: “Since the launch of Worthing’s Plant-Based School Kitchen here in Sion its success is evidenced by the number of children opting for the meals and the excited comments from happy eaters.
“They gave the junior school a taste of what was to come when they provided a traditional festive lunch before Christmas and there has been much anticipation about the start of something very exciting here at Sion. This is an exciting addition to the school and the developments of our curriculum.
“As a place of education working hard to prepare our young people for life in the real world, exploring plant-based meals is another facet of our ever-evolving education here at Sion. Our curriculum also includes discussion of issues such as sustainability, ethical farming, fair trade and renewable energy.”
Adds Gary: “For the school we focus more on the plant-based side of things at the moment, with as much as we can sourced locally – it’s what I call real food rather than processed. But this is not about pushing it down people’s throats, that’s not what we’re all about. We focus on the quality of the food, the environmental impact, keeping the carbon footprint as low as possible – in other words sustainability.”
And he admits feeding children keeps him on his toes.
“We’re learning as we go along. We served lentil and black bean balls in a sauce, which taste great but the name doesn’t really it sell it to parents and some children, so we need to think about how we word things. We didn’t use the word ‘burger’ on the menu at first, but now we do as the children know what to expect, even though it’s all plant-based, of course.”
And as to what happens next, Gary already is busy working with a marketeer and a business coach to go for other tenders. In their sights a contract in a London borough, while ‘conversations’ are underway in Brighton at a school that already serves plant-based options only on two days and is considering extending this.
He adds: “We know children are up for it and want to change. So we started at the right time as far as trends are concerned.”