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Local Authority Catering
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Ingredient management, Recipe database, Digital menus, Allergen management, Nutrition management, Stock & ordering, Meal planning, Datasheets & Reporting.
Blackpool Catering Services (BCS) is Blackpool Council's in-house catering service, providing school meals across primary, secondary, SEND and other education settings throughout the borough.
For Blackpool Council, school food plays an important role in supporting young people's health and wellbeing. As Catering Services Manager, Derek Wright oversees a service responsible for providing nutritious food while remaining efficient, sustainable and competitive.
BCS has changed considerably since 2019. The service has grown from 11 schools to an operation spanning around 30 sites, while continuing to develop its food offer, its teams and the way pupils engage with school meals.
"We are a different service from what we were back in 2019," says Derek. "We've continued to innovate the operation, the food and the engagement with our young people, and that's really helped the reputation of the service."
But running catering across around 30 sites creates complexity.
A small central team needs to manage purchasing, ingredients, recipes, allergens, nutrition, ordering, reporting and menus across approximately 150 staff. Information needs to reach kitchens, schools, parents and other stakeholders without creating unnecessary work at every stage.
Derek wanted a more connected way to manage the food side of the operation.
"We wanted a system that could take the food element all the way through without any breaks," he explains. "And that's what we found with Kafoodle."
Today, Derek describes Kafoodle as a food management system that gives BCS a "whole systems approach" to its food offer.
with connected recipes and digital menus helping BCS move away from labour-intensive full menu-cycle updates.
with clearer operational data that no longer needs the same manual manipulation.
with food information flowing more consistently from purchasing through recipes, allergens and menus.
Managing school catering across a Local Authority is very different from running a single kitchen.
BCS supports schools of different sizes and types, while a relatively small central team needs visibility across the whole service.
For Derek, one priority was clear: remove unnecessary administration so catering teams could spend more time concentrating on food.
"It's really important to me that we minimise the workload on our staff so they can concentrate on food," he says.
The systems BCS had previously used were making that difficult.
Before Kafoodle, Blackpool had worked with two different food management systems.
One relied on older technology and offered limited reporting. Data often needed to be exported into spreadsheets and manipulated manually before it became useful.
The second had originally been developed as a nutrition system, with other catering functionality added around it.
That created different frustrations.
Product setup was complex. Supplier links were restricted. Product changes could interrupt ordering. Recipes sometimes needed to be exported from one area of the system and manually stored elsewhere.
Reporting created extra work and didn't always give management the confidence they needed in the underlying information.
"We've had all these different problems that just created work," says Derek.
For a central team managing dozens of sites, every disconnected step added more administration.
School catering has traditionally relied on fixed menu cycles.
For BCS, changing a complete menu meant developing recipes, sourcing products, updating information and communicating the changes across schools and kitchens.
It also made the service less responsive.
Ingredient prices change. Seasonal availability changes. Pupil preferences change. Some dishes perform better than others.
When menus were fixed for long periods, reacting to those changes was difficult. A major menu change could also leave kitchens with stock they no longer needed.
Individual schools sometimes requested their own menu variations because they knew they could otherwise be committed to the same menu for months.
That meant more menu templates, more administration and more variation across the service.
Derek wanted BCS to review what was working and make individual changes without rebuilding the whole menu each time.
The challenge continued when information left the central team.
Much of BCS's menu communication had historically been paper-based. Information would be sent to schools, which would then communicate it to parents through their own channels and websites.
When a menu changed, the communication had to change with it.
"There's a lot of communication work that went on regarding any menu changes," says Derek.
Allergen information created another layer of administration.
If recipe information had to be manually reproduced on separate allergen or specification sheets, the same information was effectively being handled more than once.
For Derek, every duplicated step created another opportunity for something to go wrong.
"When we start putting someone in duplicating something like allergens, to take that recipe and turn it into a sheet, there's bound to be mistakes," he explains.
BCS needed the information behind its food to flow more consistently from one stage to the next.
For Derek, Kafoodle's value comes from connecting the different parts of the food workflow.
"Kafoodle gives us a whole-system approach to our food offer," he says. "From start to finish, from purchase all the way through to the production of those menu items."
Rather than expecting one platform to manage every aspect of the catering operation, Derek sees Kafoodle as responsible for managing the food information itself.
"You could call it a food management system," he explains.
That means connecting the data behind purchasing, products, recipes, allergens, nutrition, ordering and menus in a way that supports both kitchens and the central management team.
One of the biggest changes is what happens when food information is updated.
A recipe change can flow through into the connected menu rather than requiring the team to repeat the same update across separate documents
"As soon as you've done that one recipe, it's updating your menu," says Derek. "You don't have to do that — it does it automatically."
The same connected approach supports allergen information.
"You don't have to update the allergen sheets because it does that automatically."
This removes many of the repeated steps that previously sat between recipe management, allergen communication and menu publishing.
For BCS, the benefit is less administration and a clearer flow of information across the service.
Kafoodle has also helped BCS move towards live digital menus.
Schools can direct families to current menu information through their websites or use QR codes in newsletters, giving parents and pupils direct access to the latest information.
"It's live, it's updated," says Derek.
The digital menus include nutritional and allergen information, while BCS has also invested in food photography to make the experience more visual.
The same images can help kitchen teams understand how dishes should be presented and show pupils and parents what they can expect to receive.
"We've invested in photographs that give us that consistency, because it's the same photograph for the recipe that the parents see," Derek explains.
That visual element is particularly useful across a diverse community where language can sometimes be a barrier.
"Having that additional visual now in our menus can really help with describing exactly what is on the school menu for the day."
Kafoodle is also helping BCS standardise food information and presentation between sites.
Derek wants schools to work from clearer shared specifications so that dishes are prepared and presented more consistently.
"By moving to Kafoodle now, it gives us that standardisation of everything that we do," he says.
The ability to update individual dishes also reduces the need for every school to maintain its own heavily customised menu.
Instead, the central team can manage the core offer, review performance and make changes when needed.
"We just change out one dish, and it becomes very simple for a school to change on their system and for a kitchen to change on their system."
When Derek was asked which Kafoodle functionality his teams would find hardest to live without, Stock & Ordering came first.
"Stock and ordering. It's definite. That's fantastic."
Previous systems had made ordering more complicated than Derek wanted it to be. Product setup was difficult, and changes to product information could create additional barriers for kitchen teams.
Kafoodle has made that process easier to use.
"The stock and ordering would be the choice from my team," says Derek. "Within the kitchens, that just saved them so much time, so much stress. It's so easy to use for them now."
That simplicity matters.
For Derek, technology only improves an operation if staff are willing to use it.
"If they enjoy using it and it's doing the job for them and not making the job harder, then they'll engage."
While kitchen teams value Stock & Ordering, reporting is one of the biggest improvements from Derek's management perspective.
Kafoodle gives him clearer visibility into purchasing activity, category spend and operational issues such as returns, damages and non-deliveries.
"I could tell you exactly what we spent today, this month, last week, in what category, what problems we had with returns or breakages, damages, non-deliveries — just by looking at the system."
The information also requires less manual interpretation.
"We don't have to manipulate the report," says Derek. "We don't have to go and try to understand. It's there."
That has helped rebuild confidence in the information available to the management team.
"We have a lot of trust in those reports now, a lot of confidence as well."
Since implementing Kafoodle, BCS has reduced many of the manual processes that previously sat between its food information, kitchen teams, management and schools.
The clearest results are in menu management, reporting, allergen communication, and the volume of routine queries reaching the team.
A complete menu-cycle change previously involved recipe development, product sourcing, documentation and rollout across the service.
Derek estimates that getting a full change through the operation could take around a month.
"You're talking a good month's work to be able to get a change all the way through," he says.
Kafoodle has enabled BCS to approach menu management differently.
Rather than waiting for another wholesale menu change, individual dishes can be amended and the connected information updated through the system.
Asked how long that process can now take, Derek estimates:
"Probably hours."
The result is not simply a faster version of the old process. It gives the team more freedom to make targeted changes when a dish is not performing, prices change, or the food offer needs to evolve.
"You're saving a hell of a lot of time," says Derek. "And you are now in a position where you can be proactive instead of just reactive."
Reporting has delivered another measurable improvement.
Derek estimates that producing an individual report through previous systems could take around an hour, followed by further time spent checking or manipulating the information.
Today, the same type of management information can be accessed in minutes.
"Now you're talking about minutes to get the data and see exactly what's going on," he says.
With BCS using "easily 20 reports, if not more" across different areas of the operation, the reduction in manual reporting work can add up quickly.
More importantly, Derek has greater confidence in what the reports are telling him.
"From the reporting side of the system — seeing what is going on every day, what we're purchasing, what category spend we've got — those are the biggest areas that really improved."
Digital menus have also changed how BCS communicates with parents and schools.
Previously, questions around menus, allergens and nutrition could arrive through multiple parts of the service, from area managers and office teams through to Derek himself.
Asked whether those queries had changed since BCS introduced live digital menu information, Derek was emphatic.
"Massively. We don't have any noise anymore."
Today, direct intervention is generally reserved for more complex cases, such as children with specialist dietary or healthcare requirements.
"We don't really have any, unless it's an extreme special diet," he says.
For Derek, giving families direct access to current information has made communication considerably easier.
"It's really helped us with our communication of menus, menu allergens and menu nutrition. It's really improved what we do at Blackpool Council."
Allergen management is another area where Derek believes the connected workflow has made a significant difference.
When asked whether Kafoodle had resolved the operational problem BCS previously faced around allergen information, his response was immediate:
"Totally solved it."
Kitchen teams can access data sheets and specifications directly, whether they need information for an individual dish or a wider menu cycle.
That removes much of the manual work involved in taking information from a recipe and reproducing it elsewhere.
"Within the kitchen environment, it's transformed the way we work, and it stopped a lot of duplication," says Derek.
Allergen management remains an important responsibility, but staff now have easier access to the information they need without repeatedly recreating it.
For Derek, reducing administration is ultimately about giving catering teams more time to focus on the service they provide.
"We want to give our staff the best tools to do their job," he says.
Stock & ordering is easier for kitchen teams. Menu and allergen information no longer requires the same duplication. Management has clearer visibility into what is happening across the operation.
The result is more time for the work Derek believes matters most.
"We're giving them the right technology to do the job," he says. "That means more time looking at the food, more time developing their service and looking after the children that they serve."
Blackpool Catering Services has spent the past several years evolving its school food offer.
The service has grown. Its food has changed. Its teams have continued to develop. And expectations around nutrition, cost, compliance and communication continue to move.
Kafoodle gives BCS a more connected way to manage the information behind that food.
Stock & ordering is easier for kitchen teams. Recipes connect with menus. Allergen information no longer needs the same manual duplication. Parents can access live digital menus. Reporting is faster. And menu changes can be handled more flexibly.
Most importantly for Derek, teams are engaging with the technology.
"Kafoodle is becoming invaluable to our team," he says. "It's a system that they enjoy using, and that's half the battle."
Fora Local Authority catering service managing food across around 30 sites, that combination of connected information, usability and visibility is helping BCS spend less time managing the processes around food — and more time improving the food and service its young people receive.
