Nutrition to support young minds

At Astrea Academy Trust, we believe that school catering is a key component to providing an effective and nurturing learning environment. Through carefully designed, highly-nutritious food menus, pupils in our 26 academies have the fuel required to focus, re-energise and improve their learning. Our central in-house catering experts blend a wealth of experience within the catering field with a science-backed approach to children’s food and nutrition – all whilst ensuring all meals are filling and full of flavour.

Our promise is that all pupils, regardless of allergies or beliefs, will receive healthy, tasty meals.

The importance of school food

School meals typically provide around one-third of a pupil’s daily intake, making them a major influence on overall diet quality. For many children, particularly those eligible for free school meals, a school lunch may be the most nutritious and balanced meal they receive each day. Additionally, research shows the positive academic impact that a healthy school meal can have on a pupil.

Nutrition & Health

Research shows school meals contain less sugar than packed lunches – and contain more fibre, proteins, vitamins and minerals.
School meals help children to eat their ‘five-a-day’ – only 15% of UK children currently achieve this.
School meals can help to maintain reasonable calorie levels – 10% of Reception pupils and 22% of Year 6 pupils are obese in the UK.

Learning & Wellbeing

Research shows that healthy school meals can result in improved conentration and increased engagement.
Additionally, research shows that healthy school meals often leads to improved pupil behaviour and calmer classrooms.
As a result of balanced, healthy meals that children enjoy, schools can see improved academic attainment and wellbeing outcomes.

1 in 4 pupils are eligible for free school meals. With much higher rates within Astrea schools, it’s crucial that our meals have impact.
School meals can help to support disadvantaged pupils by closing attainment gaps and broadening their diet – helping to reduce food insecurity.
School meals can support equitable access to nutritious food, helping to reduce the stigma of free school meals.

Read more in our full report: The Importance of School Food COMING SOON

Delivering specialist support, in-house

Our central, in-house catering leads. They’re not only experts in the field of catering and nutrition – they also closely manage school catering logistics and operations. They provide flexibility, consistency and operational stability, which is crucial for allowing trust’s to deliver effective and efficiency school catering.

Support chefs are essential to any trust’s catering infrastructure.

They’re trained to identify the following:

Waste reduction opportunities

Better stock control practices

More efficient kitchen workflows

Across 22 schools, even small improvements create significant savings.

Each school must meet strict food safety standards. Support chefs help ensure:

Consistent application of HACCP procedures

Proper documentation and audits

Immediate intervention if a kitchen is falling below standard

This is crucial in avoiding risks to students and the trust’s reputation.

In a multi-academy trust, consistency matters:

Same quality of meals across all schools

Standardised recipes and portion control

Consistent student experience regardless of location

Our chefs act as “standards champions” across sites.

When things go wrong (equipment failure, staffing crises, inspections), support chefs:

Step in quickly

Stabilise operations

With 22 schools, it’s inevitable that chefs will be off sick, on leave, or vacancies will arise. Support chefs can step in immediately to:

Keep kitchens running without interruption

Prevent school meal service failures

Reduce reliance on agency staff (which can be costly and inconsistent)

Our central team often mentor and train school-based kitchen teams:

Upskilling staff in cooking techniques and compliance

Supporting new starters or struggling teams

Rolling out new menus or initiatives

This strengthens the whole trust, not just individual schools.

With 22 schools, there are constant changes:

New school openings or onboarding

Menu updates or supplier changes

Equipment upgrades or kitchen redesigns

Our central team provide hands-on expertise during transitions.

Café spaces for staff and students

Our central catering team are not only responsible for the management and delivery of school meals, but they also lead on the design and implementation of bespoke services, such as our cafés at St Ivo Academy and Longsands Academy.