Latest News
Club Joules has been awarded the Food for Life Bronze standard
11-11-2011
Prestigious mark of approval for school catering
Sodexo achieves the prestigious bronze Food for Life Catering Mark for serving fresh and healthy meals in all its primary schools across the UK.
The foodservices and facilities management company has become one of the first in its industry to achieve the Soil Association’s bronze Food for Life Catering Mark for serving fresh and healthy meals everyday to thousands of school children aged between four and 11 years.
The Catering Mark is a unique scheme which recognises caterers and restaurants who serve fresh food that is free from controversial additives and better for animal welfare. More and more, people want to know where their food comes from and how it was produced. The Food for Life Catering Mark offers a guarantee that fresh food you can trust is always on the menu.
As a provider of more than one million meals a day, many people rely on Sodexo for much of their daily nutritional intake, including parents and guardians of school children. Sodexo is committed to providing freshly prepared, sustainable and healthy menus, with produce from farms that satisfy UK welfare standards. Caterers with the bronze Catering Mark serve seasonal meals which are freshly prepared and free from undesirable additives including MSG, tartrazine and aspartame. No GM ingredients are used and all eggs are from cage-free hens.
Colm O’Mahony, divisional director for Sodexo Education, said: “We’re delighted that we’ve achieved the bronze Food for Life Catering Mark. This is a fantastic recognition of our commitment to sourcing the very best British produce and serving freshly prepared seasonal meals."
“Through our 26-year Healthwise campaign and food offers such as ‘Club Joules’ and ‘Be part of it’, we are able to create exciting, nutritional and healthy meals for children everyday.”
Explaining the importance of the Catering Mark, Rob Sexton, Chief Executive of Soil Association Certification, said: "The bronze Catering Mark is an excellent achievement which recognises the vital role that fresh, seasonal meals play in healthy, planet-friendly menus, especially for large-scale catering. It reassures customers that their meals are free from GM ingredients, trans fats and prepared from scratch.”
The Food for Life Catering Mark originated as part of the successful Food for Life Partnership, which is working with 3,800 schools across the country to put fresh, healthy dinners on the school menu and food education in the timetable.
Food for Life Partnership schools have reported an increase in attendance as well as improved behaviour, and meal take-up has risen by almost three times the national average in schools which have been awarded the Catering Mark.
Other accreditations achieved by Sodexo includes the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) certification for serving MSC certified fish and seafood at all fish serving sites in the UK; and Red Tractor, which provides an assurance of governance and traceability, including high standards of food safety and hygiene, animal welfare and environmental protection. In addition, Sodexo is a member of LEAF (Linking Environment and Farming), which promotes environmentally responsible farming, and is also currently working closely with Freedom Food to increase the amount of high welfare salmon,chicken, pork and eggs sourced by Sodexo.
For more information about Sodexo’s Club Joules menus, please visit www.clubjoules.com
