The biggest challenge for education caterers is keeping a canteen of students happy without blowing the budget. Whether you’re catering for primary school-aged children, teenagers in secondary school or college students, why not consider a trend-led approach?
Here, we’re sharing some of the top catering industry trends you can use to inspire your next education catering strategy. We’ll also pass on our insights into how you can manage and stick to your budget.
5 catering trends to follow in education
Keeping up with wider catering trends and implementing them into your next strategy can help you serve up food that your students will love, regardless of which age range you’re catering for. Here, we’ve summarised some of the biggest trends for education caterers to consider.
Global flavours and fusion menus
Young people are becoming increasingly interested in flavours and fusion dishes from around the world. From combinations like Korean BBQ to traditional Italian and Moroccan-style dishes, introducing these into your catering can open up your menus to authentic, flavoursome and vibrant food options.
While you might need to steer clear of the hot spices for the youngest students, you can still offer dishes with lighter aromatic flavours like mild curries and sweet desserts containing nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger and coriander. This will expand their knowledge of world foods and introduce students to new and exciting tastes.
For older students, you can offer variations filled with bold spices and herbs alongside exciting sauces and marinades. But make sure to offset it with mild flavours, too, to give students plenty of choice based on their preferences.
Menu themes
We eat with our eyes first, so why not go big on the visuals and display your menu in a fun and encouraging way? Education caterers can make mealtimes fun by creating themes like street food, charcuterie and barbecue to group different meals. Themes could even coincide with the curriculum, so if students are learning about a particular country, for example, dishes from that part of the world could be offered to give them an immersive experience. These themes can run for a week or two and can include education about the flavours and ingredients being used.
Visual and colourful meals
On that note, another trend in catering is to be creative with displaying nutritious foods. While it might sound obvious, it can be easy to forget about how the food will look when it’s being served to students.
Healthy foods featuring a rainbow of colours might’ve once been a huge no-no for most children, but with social media showing off visually aesthetic meals like smoothie bowls and matcha flavoured foods and drinks, children are following these trends and are more likely to choose a colourful option.
Doing this can encourage students to eat fruit and veg, especially when they’re younger. Create a fruit and veg charcuterie board, experiment with colour combinations in dishes, or create a rainbow display of different foods. The more visual and colourful, the better.
Plant-based and alternative meals
Meat-free meals are becoming more popular in catering for several reasons. For catering businesses, they’re on the rise due to sustainability and cost, alongside offering students a meat-free alternative option on the menu. This means that businesses can easily cater to all preferences and needs, as more individuals see the benefits of changing their eating habits.
However, you can’t let the visuals slip for these meals. Brainstorm different ways to make sure your plant-based, meat-alternative dishes still look just as colourful as your other meals on offer.
Seasonal trends
Seasonal food trends are, of course, heavily based on what’s in season at different points of the year. Keeping up with the seasonal produce and using ingredients when they’re in season can improve nutrition and taste.
But as with many other trends across industries, it can also help to turn to social media and pop culture references in search of the next best dishes and flavours for your seasonal options. From gut health foods and sourdough bread to strawberries and cream sandwiches and snack trays, these are just some of the trends that have been circling on the big and little screens.
Think about how you could incorporate these while using seasonal produce, and you could be onto the next level of the latest trends!
How can businesses keep education catering costs down?
Following trends and developing nutritional, tasty meals when creating your term-time menus can often be the easiest part as an experienced caterer. But what about keeping costs down? If your team tends to go over budget, we’re here to help you cut costs without scrimping on quality, taste or excitement for students.
Create a strategic business plan
The first step is to gain access to the number of students you’ll be catering for, so that you can assess the cost per pupil (CPP) for the year. This should then be divided by each term to help you work out your budget and the stock required.
You can then consider your strategy, thinking about splitting costs, nutrition, flavour and individual requirements of students. How will costs be split evenly? Will you need to spend more money during some terms, and how will this be offset? Do you need to improve nutrition and flavour in your meals? Think about your catering operations at every level and assess the needs of your business along with the needs of your students.
Invest in the latest technology
Up-to-date technology platforms tailored to the catering industry can support you with a variety of procurement, menu management and budgeting tasks. They can automate and streamline your financial operations, giving you clarity over budgets and costs, and help you stay on top of all things menu management-related, including allergen regulations, recipes and menu favourites.
At EF-group, our technology platforms are available to support caterers in the education industry.
Freshmarket
Freshworks allows caterers to simplify supply chain management, consolidate invoicing and benefit from bespoke reporting options. With our simple procurement system, you can also check the status of orders, easily generate new orders and raise queries all from one platform.
CaterCloud
CaterCloud simplifies menu management for caterers in many industries, including education. Enabling users to manage ingredients, build recipes and menus, keep an eye on costs, monitor allergen profiles and stay updated on allergen regulations, this platform keeps catering businesses running smoothly without the additional admin burden.
Track key metrics
Any business should set and track key metrics, and education caterers are no exception. It’s likely that you already work towards KPIs like cost per meal, waste per child and performance, but it’s important to ensure that these aren’t just being used for the sake of it. They should be monitored at regular intervals, ensuring that the goals you set are specific and measurable to hold the relevant teams accountable for meeting KPIs and staying on track with costs and resources.
Menu management
When you’re on top of your menu management, you have a full overview of everything from costs to nutrition. But when it comes to staying under budget, catering tools and platforms with menu budget tracking can be particularly useful.
With CaterCloud, for example, you can track the live average cost per pupil for a specific timeframe. So, not only can you see exactly when you might go over budget before it happens, but you can also see exactly which ingredients or meals might be causing this. Using data visualisations, you can then work out which meal plans are the best options for staying under budget.
Engage with students
It’s simple – gathering student feedback and initiating conversations about everything from food themes to specific meal options can help ensure you’re only offering the most popular choices. This means you’re not only minimising food waste, but you’ll also be able to plan ahead for anticipated stock needs.
Gather a team of trained staff
The catering team plays an important role in budget management, which is why you should assemble a fully-qualified group equipped with the necessary skills to run an efficient operation. By minimising further training costs and ensuring the team is competent in waste management, stock rotation, and other key tasks for education caterers, you’re less likely to burn through your budget with avoidable incidents.
Purchase seasonal produce
Seasonal produce is grown and sourced locally, meaning it’s often the most sustainable, cost-effective choice for your catering plan. It also offers great nutritional value since produce is at its peak when it’s in season. Whether you’re purchasing aubergine during summer or lamb in spring, knowing which ingredients are in season during certain months can improve your planning, keep procurement costs down and boost both flavour and nutrition for your students.
Download your free seasonal produce planner
To help you plan for the academic year ahead, we’ve created a seasonal produce calendar showcasing which foods are in season and when. From this, you can see when certain foods hit their nutritional peak throughout the year. Allow our calendar to inspire you to create new and exciting meals that elevate your catering, whether it’s for primary school children or university students.
We hope this guide helps you understand how trends and budget can impact your output as an education caterer. For more useful insights, check out the EF-group blog.
