There have been a number of changes in the catering industry recently, specifically affecting schools and their caterers. This has had a small impact on the Food For Thought school lunch menu and how this is presented.
Firstly, the 'Food Information Regulations 2014' come into force on 13/12/14 which is a law relating to how caterers will inform their customers of any ingredients in their dishes which contain any of the following 14 allergens;
Cereals containing gluten
Crustaceans
Eggs
Fish
Lupin
Milk
Molluscs
Mustard
Nuts
Peanuts
Sesame seeds
Soya
Sulphur dioxide
The legislation dictates that we must provide this information where our customers can access it, so additional to our menu is a matrix which shows which of the allergens are in each of the dishes on that week. These can be found on the MENUS tab of our website. As our menus are prepared freshly using locally sourced, un-processed ingredients there will be a number of allergens which will not apply, but it is good for all of our customers to check these.
Second, the result of the 'School Food Plan' was that there a new set of food based standards for schools providing a meal. Again, as Food For Thought's menus are freshly produced, healthy and varied they were compliant to these standards before their planned introduction in January 2015. Our new menus are checked for compliance, and we are confident that they are better than ever.
FFT Catering Manager