Caterers attend to material needs of monks and nuns in education

Education caterer Scolarest has started a three-year contract to provide catering for a community of Benedictine monks in Somerset, in what could be the start of a new trend.

Scolarest, part of the Compass Group, is feeding 27 monks at Downside Abbey in Stratton-on-the-Fosse.

The contract, which has a total turnover of £2m, also includes catering for 340 pupils and 140 staff at the neighbouring Catholic boys' school, providing breakfast, lunch and an evening meal for 280 pupils who board at the school.

In a similar deal last year, the Sisters of Notre Dame, an educational order of nuns based in Parbold, Lancashire, recruited a general manager to take care of their catering, cleaning, maintenance, laundry and other services.

The nuns said their ageing population and a difficulty in recruiting novices were behind their decision to bring in professional caterers.