Lunchtime

A live television news broadcast from a school dining room at prime viewing time is a rare event. But it happened recently when Scotland Today interviewed teachers and pupils at Holyrood Secondary School in Glasgow at the launch of a new concept called Fuel Zone.

Media interest was a result of the dramatic rise in figures when Fuel Zone had been trialled in the previous term, leading to a 324% increase in daily cash income, 50% increase in uptake of free meals and 65% market penetration.

The brainchild of Fergus Chambers, director of Glasgow City Council's catering and domestic care services, Fuel Zone has changed the school meals service, in his words, "from a relatively drab, unexciting and uninspiring service into one that will lead the authority's catering department into the new millennium".

The Glasgow experience is being repeated in varying forms across the UK as school caterers combat queuing times, reduced lunch hours, lack of "street cred" and low uptake. They are also endeavouring to attract the extra income spent outside school - this can be double the lunch money, a fact revealed in Gardner Merchant's 1998 School Meals Survey, which showed that 45% of children buy sweets and 20% buy snacks and crisps on their way home from school.

These objectives are being achieved mainly through updating the environment to match the high street image, and adopting retail merchandising methods by introducing branding, zappy uniforms, bright colours and piped music. However, a radical change of menu is not always necessary. Schools are finding that although burgers, pizzas, pasta, baguettes and relishes meet the street-cred criteria of 1990s secondary pupils, they can still attract custom with a traditional meal and healthy options - provided the merchandising is right.

Choosing wisely

When Gerry Clinton, catering manager for the direct service organisation (DSO) at the London Borough of Barking & Dagenham, introduced Oscar the Owl to help primary pupils choose wisely, along with an Events theme in secondary schools, there were no menu changes. Not only did the new themes help maintain numbers through two price rises in 12 months - raising primary meals by 10p to £1.15 for infants, £1.20 for juniors and £1.25 for secondary pupils would normally have wrought havoc with the numbers - there has been an overall increase of 5% in the uptake of school lunches.

Events is a sports-based theme linking health and fitness through promotional material, where food is conspicuous by its absence. "We're trying to make the link between fitness and food without making it obvious, to give it street credibility," says Clinton, who has visually themed the menu along sports lines without changing the content.

When Events opened in one school, the number of pupils purchasing a school meal rose from 700 to more than 1,000, and sales of sandwiches and baguettes rocketed to such a point that computer software had to be updated to cope with the labelling. "It's a matter of creating the right trading package," says Clinton, who also saw take-up numbers rise by 35-50% in schools where catering facilities were improved. "Give us the facilities and we can cater far better than the high street," he adds.

Income rose by 20% in a school piloting a new scheme called EDz (Energy Download Zone), from Gardner Merchant Education Services. Employing what divisional director Rosamund Marshall calls "late 1990s speak", cafeterias become "zones" where caterers provide "energy" which is "downloaded" into the eating zone. It is due to go into 11 new sites next year and become part of the company's nationwide strategy.

Part of the EDz promotion is a character called Joules, named after the man who discovered and gave his name to the measurement of energy, who advises on healthy eating.

"You can't force a child to spend money on food they don't want, so we're suggesting eating in moderation," says Marshall. "We do meal deals offering a pizza with a fizzy drink, and put more vegetables into dishes such as stir-fry so that they eat vegetables without realising."

Attractive surroundings may get children into the dining room, but whether they eat healthily appears to depend largely on merchandising. Following complaints about the drab dining hall in a pupil survey earlier this year, Yvonne Savage, unit manager at de Stafford College at Caterham in Surrey, where Chartwells caters, persuaded the college to paint the walls a refreshing pale green. She decorated the counters in the company colours of green, blue and orange, and introduced a selection of the Chartwells in-house brands because she was not happy with the burger-and-chips diet most pupils chose.

"Numbers rose by 10%, and healthier food items such as pizzas and jacket potatoes trebled," says Savage, who boosted sales by 40% during the summer term by operating a weekly barbecue. "We reduced the servery area for burgers and chips and promoted the healthier options - although we didn't say this to the pupils. They don't know they're eating healthier food."

Guidelines

This bolsters a general belief among school caterers that, although the Government may try to set nutritional guidelines, children will not be dictated to about what they eat. As one head teacher says: "If they don't like the food, they'll go without. They need to be tempted. We have to be one step ahead of them or we lose them."

Keeping pace with today's children means listening to them. Takings rose by 45% when Cardiff Catering, the DSO of Cardiff County Council, responded to pupils' challenge to create a facility to rival the high street.

An old cloakroom at the city's Whitchurch High School was transformed into a modern bakery bar, open to pupils, staff and visitors from 10am to 2.30pm. Bread is baked on the premises and more than 100 baguettes are sold daily, with a variety of fillings ranging from chicken and mayonnaise to lamb and mint. The project was branded the "f Chain", playing on the concept of the food chain.

"Serving more than 1,000 students and staff in a short time wasn't easy," says Sue Eakers, chief executive of Cardiff Catering. "The f Chain enables us to spread the load throughout the day. We can use the extra space in the servery for more traditional meals and a larger range of healthy options."

Although there is still mileage from one-off special days, any increase in numbers and income is often temporary and catering companies are now pledging themselves to long-term themed dining rooms and serveries to capture and hold the interest of school pupils.

As one catering manager says: "All school kids are customers with opinions and money to spend. It's up to us to make it fun for them to ‘eat out' at school."