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Primary & Secondary Education Catering
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Multi-Academy Trust / Education catering
10 Schools
Ingredient Management, Recipe Database, Digital Menus, Allergen Management, Nutrition Management, Recipe Costing, Stock & Purchasing, Meal Planning, Reporting.
The Constellation Trust is a multi-academy trust based in Hull, East Yorkshire, supporting pupils across primary, secondary and alternative provision settings.
As Head of Trust Catering, James Pickering is responsible for managing the Trust’s in-house catering service across multiple school sites. His role covers everything from menu creation and recipe consistency to allergen communication, cost control, procurement and safeguarding.
When James joined the Trust’s catering operation, one of his main priorities was to bring catering in-house and move away from each school managing its own catering.
“My task really was to bring catering in-house and move away from the schools doing individual things, and try to standardise that,” James explains.
For a Trust serving around 5,000 pupils, standardisation matters. Menus need to be consistent. Recipes need to be clear. Allergen information needs to be accurate. Parents need access to reliable food information. And central teams need confidence that every school is working from the same data.
That is where Kafoodle has become central to The Constellation Trust's management of school food.
“It’s become so embedded into what we do,” says James. “Our heads of school have come to rely on it.”
with centralised ingredient, recipe and allergen data.
when ingredients, recipes or supplier products change.
with a single source of food data every school can access.
As The Constellation Trust brought catering in-house and expanded its school food operation, James needed a better way to manage catering information across multiple sites.
The old process was manual. James would produce menus, add allergen codes and send information out by email. But school menus are not static. Products change. Suppliers delist items. Substitutions happen. Prices move. Ingredients are updated.
Once a menu was already in the public domain, every change created a communication challenge.
“The issue with that is that obviously a supplier makes a change, but then the menu is already out there in the public domain, and it’s very difficult to try and change that,” says James.
For a multi-site Trust, this was becoming difficult to manage. If one product changed, James needed to update the information, notify the relevant people, and ensure every school was working from the latest version.
“Whereas before, the amount of phone calls and emails telling people that they can’t have this and it’s been replaced with this — it’s not workable.”
Allergens were one of James’ biggest concerns.
When asked about the Trust’s priorities for school catering, James was clear: “Allergens and communicating that, and getting parents on board with things.”
For education catering teams, allergen information needs to be clear, accurate and easy to access. This is especially important in primary school settings, where pupils may have additional needs, be learning English as a second language, or have a limited ability to interpret food information independently.
“It’s got to be clear, concise, it’s got to be accurate,” says James. “There are no grey areas.”
The Trust needed a way to manage allergen data more consistently, communicate it more clearly and support parents in understanding what their children could safely choose.
James had used other systems before, but the issue was not simply whether they could store recipe or allergen information. The issue was whether that information connected properly to the menus families and schools were using.
“What I find is that they’re very clunky,” says James. “They do not interact with other platforms.”
Running one system for back-office food data and another for customer-facing menus would create duplication and risk. Every change would need to be updated twice.
“You’d have to have two things running separately, and that would never work because you’d have to remember to update both things at the same time.”
James needed a single connected workflow: from supplier and ingredient data through recipes and allergen information to the digital menus that parents and pupils could see.
Kafoodle gave The Constellation Trust a central system for managing school food information across multiple sites.
For James, the first thing that stood out was the digital menu experience.
“When I saw the visuals, I saw the interactive menus, I thought it was much, much more engaging,” he says.
Instead of static paper menus or text-heavy documents, Kafoodle enabled the Trust to create interactive digital menus that families could access online. Pupils and parents could see images of meals, click through for nutritional information and review food details in a more accessible format.
“To me, it’s about taking your menus and making them digital and customer-facing,” says James. “Once you’ve done that, it’s being able to access all the nutritional information within those menus.”
The real value for James is that Kafoodle connects the back-office information with the public-facing menu.
Ingredient data, recipes, allergens, nutrition and costing all sit behind the menu. When something changes, James can update Kafoodle and reflect that change quickly across the Trust’s school websites.
“If I’ve created a menu and realised that the product’s been delisted, I’ll just go back in, change it, and then within seconds the school website has been updated,” says James.
This helps The Constellation Trust avoid the duplication and risk that comes with managing separate systems for recipe data and public-facing menus.
Kafoodle also helps James and his team have clearer conversations with parents and guardians.
When a family needs support understanding what their child can eat, James can guide them through the digital menu and use filters to show which meals may or may not be suitable.
“In some cases, they come to school, and they’ll meet with us, and I’ll say, ‘Have a look. Here’s a filter,’” says James.
The filter helps families see which items are excluded by a particular allergen or dietary requirement. It also helps James identify where the Trust may need to improve menu inclusivity.
“When I put the filter on, and everything turns red, that’s the key for me to think I need to put more work in, making sure we have plenty of options that lots of people can have.”
This turns allergen data into something practical. It helps the catering team support individual pupils, identify gaps and make more informed menu decisions.
Kafoodle is also helping The Constellation Trust standardise recipes and production methods.
For James, consistency is not just about ingredients. It is about method, yield, portion size, presentation and how dishes should be served.
“It’s not just allergens,” he says. “I want to put a method of cooking there. I want to put a yield for something.”
James compares this to the traditional “spec book” used in pubs and restaurants: a clear reference point showing what a dish should look like and how it should be prepared.
With Kafoodle, recipes can include practical details such as cooking methods, portion sizes, serving guidance, images and specifications. This gives school teams a shared benchmark and reduces interpretation between sites.
“We make sure that it’s not open to interpretation,” says James. “It is exactly what it is, and here’s a real-life picture of what it looks like.”
One example was a more inclusive brownie recipe. Initially, the recipe was not working consistently across sites. Once the Trust refined the method, resting time, freezing guidance, portion size and tray specification, teams could follow the recipe properly.
“It went from ‘it’s rubbish, it doesn’t work, it’s crumbly, it’s wet, kids don’t like it’ to ‘this is great,’” says James. “It was only great because people followed the recipe.”
Costing is another core part of how James uses Kafoodle.
When creating recipes, James can see whether a dish works commercially before it reaches the menu. He can review portion sizes, compare ingredients and understand the unit cost of individual meal components.
“When it’s time to put a recipe together, I’ve got an idea of what I think it’ll cost. Then actually looking at it, it costs a lot more,” he says. “That makes me think: what is the portion size?”
This data helps James answer operational and financial questions from leadership. If the Chief Operating Officer asks for the average food cost of a free school meal, James can review the menu and calculate it from the individual components.
“If our Chief Operating Officer said, ‘What’s the average cost of a free school meal as a food cost, not a labour cost?’ I could go through the menu quite easily.”
For a multi-academy trust managing budgets across several schools, this visibility is critical.
Kafoodle also supports James by helping manage supplier and product information more efficiently.
Before Kafoodle, supplier updates could involve emailing account managers, waiting for specification sheets, downloading multiple attachments, storing files and matching them to the correct products. By the time that work was complete, something may already have changed again.
“There could have been a change,” says James. “The product’s been delisted, the price has changed, or this product’s now a substitute.”
With Kafoodle, James has clearer visibility into product information and can see when items are suspended or awaiting updates.
“At a glance, I can see if you’re waiting for products to come through,” he says. “It is a lot faster when you are dealing directly with the suppliers.”
Since implementing Kafoodle, The Constellation Trust has created a more connected and consistent way to manage school food information.
For James, the impact is practical, visible and embedded in the way the Trust now operates.
One of the clearest benefits is time saved.
James estimates that Kafoodle saves around a day a week by reducing the time spent checking product information, chasing supplier updates and pushing changes out to schools.
“In truth, probably a day a week,” he says, referring to the time that would otherwise be spent “just going through and checking that things are OK, also pushing that information out.”
This is especially important in a multi-site Trust, where manual communication can quickly become outdated.
“In the 72 hours that they’ve taken to read the information, things have changed,” says James.
Kafoodle helps reduce that lag by giving school teams a single place to access current information.
Kafoodle has also made menu updates faster.
When products change, James no longer needs to rely on lengthy email chains or phone calls to communicate every update manually. He can change the information in Kafoodle and update the digital menu quickly.
“Within seconds, the school website has been updated and changed,” says James.
For delisted products, the process is just as direct.
“Within minutes of being notified of a delist, I could just change things right away.”
This gives the Trust more agility when products are unavailable, suppliers make changes or menus need to be amended at short notice.
Kafoodle supports the Trust’s safe guarding approach by helping James manage allergen information more clearly and consistently.
James now presents catering and safe guarding together with the Trust’s safeguarding lead, reflecting how closely food allergy controls are linked to pupil safety.
“Food allergy controls are recognised as safeguarding,” he says.
For The Constellation Trust, accurate food information is essential. Kafoodle helps centralise that information and gives teams a clearer way to communicate it across schools and with families.
“A lot of things we do — in fact, all of it really — links back to safeguarding,” says James.
Kafoodle has also helped the Trust move closer to consistent food production across sites.
By using recipe specifications, images, methods and portion guidance, James can give teams a clear reference point for what each dish should be and how it should be prepared.
This is particularly valuable when schools are serving the same menu or when new schools join the Trust.
“You’re going to get access to the digital menu platforms, all these recipes, all this knowledge, and you’re going to get consistency,” says James.
Kafoodle gives James a way to capture catering knowledge centrally and make it available across the Trust.
The digital menu experience has also improved how families interact with school food information.
Parents and pupils can access menus online, view images, see nutritional details and use filters to understand suitability.
“The interactive menus are good because a family can go onto the website, have a look at the meals, and see what’s in them and if they are appropriate,” says James.
“It just looks much more professional.”
For families managing allergies, intolerances or other dietary needs, this visibility supports more informed conversations with the school.
Perhaps the strongest sign of Kafoodle’s value is how embedded it has become in The Constellation Trust’s catering operation.
“Even if I wanted to pull the plug on this, it would be very difficult,” says James.
“It’s become so embedded into what we do.”
James also sees Kafoodle as part of what differentiates the Trust’s catering offer.
“It’s kind of a flagship of where we are and what we do,” he says. “It makes us different from other schools.”
As the Trust considers future growth, Kafoodle provides James with a scalable way to share menus, recipes, and food information with new schools without needing to be physically present at every site.
“When you spread the net further, it’s kind of impossible,” he says. “I can’t be going to Lincolnshire. I can’t be spending the time in that.”
With Kafoodle, information can be pushed out centrally and accessed by teams wherever they are.
For other multi-academy trusts considering food management software, James’ advice is to start simple and think carefully about structure.
“I would start everything as if you had a piece of paper and wrote it down,” he says.
After learning from his own setup, James now recommends building recipes and data at the Trust level first, then adapting them to different school settings as needed.
“What I started doing now is make everything mostly Trust level,” he explains. “You put that at the top of the pyramid, and then you bring it down into a primary or a secondary.”
His advice is clear: avoid overcomplicating the system too early. Create a strong foundation, then build from there.
“Keep things as simple as possible and almost view it like a pyramid,” says James. “Be quite selective about how you do things and start building up on something quite simple.”
For The Constellation Trust, Kafoodle is more than a digital menu tool. It is a central food management platform that helps James and his team manage ingredients, recipes, allergens, nutrition, costs, purchasing information and reporting across multiple school sites.
It saves time. It supports safeguarding. It gives families clearer information. And it helps the Trust deliver a more consistent catering service as it grows.
“You’ve got this digital interactive platform,” says James, “but behind that you’ve got real people.”
For a Trust managing school food across multiple sites, that combination of technology, visibility and support has become essential.
“Kafoodle stands out from other platforms,” says James.
