School winners

JOAN Pickering is in the process of choosing bud vases for the dining-room tables. The new plates have gone down well with customers and she's about to bring in new cutlery. The bright decor - a sunny yellow and blue - framed photographs on the walls and new tables and chairs have been welcomed, too.

We're not talking interior design in a fine-dining restaurant here. This is Selhurst School for Boys near Croydon, and Pickering is the so-called "superhead" who was brought in last September to save the school from closure after it failed an Ofsted inspection. She succeeded.

One of the most important changes Pickering has overseen has been in the dining room. The social skills involved in sitting down to a meal in company are important ones, she says, and eating should take place in a pleasant place. "My first impression of the room was of an uncivilised, tatty café," she says. "Tables and chairs were bolted to the ground, the walls were a dowdy burgundy and snack meals were served in polystyrene containers. The boys ate with their coats on using plastic knives and forks or their hands. I wanted wholesale change."

So out went the local authority caterers and in came Goodfellows Catering Management Services last May. A new manager, Sue Rossi, was brought in at the start of the school year to lead a team of seven in the kitchen, while Goodfellows' operations director, Philippa Forde, oversees the five-year contract. Goodfellows invested £6,000 in improvements to the dining room but stands to earn a £10,000 management fee and a contribution to turnover of £110,000.

Pupils' behaviour has changed out of all recognition since the improvements, says Pickering, largely because boys' opinions have been taken into account.

Boys have been able to quiz the Goodfellows team about the meals they will be offered, and their comments have been considered, she says. "I firmly believe you can change behaviour by giving some responsibility. It's not a ‘them and us' situation any more." Bud vases may seem an odd way to appeal to adolescent boys - 350 11- to 16-year-olds attend the school - but something is working: 30% more boys now take a school meal.

The Goodfellows team has worked closely with Pickering to create a range of healthy menus that rotate on a four-weekly basis. There's now actually less choice than before - "It used to be like a big tuck shop," says Goodfellows' managing director Norman Deas - but proper meals are cooked instead of the array of snacks that used to be sold. The three "meal deals" per day each cost £1.30 and include a main dish - there's a vegetarian option, too - pudding and drink.

Lasagne, southern-fried chicken and curries sell best, says Rossi, and sponge and custard remains as popular as ever. Fresh fruit and salad is always on sale, although Rossi says it's taken up more by teachers than boys. At the insistence of Pickering, the additive-laden fizzy drinks and snacks that used to make up the boys' diet and result in hyperactive behaviour in the afternoons are no longer on offer.

"It's more labour-intensive," says Rossi, "but these meals are much better for the kids. For many of them it's their only meal of the day." Offering fresh food rather than buying in boxes of pre-prepared meals clearly makes financial sense, too - Deas reports an improvement on profit margins of 10% compared with the local authority figures.

Elsewhere among the schools contracts, there's better news from Templars school in Witham, Essex, where fewer pupils than expected were buying meals. The new headmistress has agreed an action plan to improve uptake, and Deas is confident that the contract will become more profitable soon.

Back in central London, budgets have been an issue at the Government Offices for London (GOL) in Westminster. "Food costs went over in the first month, which you might expect as we find our feet," says Deas, "but they were 15% over in the second month, too."

Costs have been going slightly adrift on the sandwiches, and Goodfellows is trying to introduce stricter portion control and reduce the oversupply of confectionery and biscuits it inherited from the previous contractor.

Deas says he is "75% confident" that expenditure will be pulled back into line by the New Year thanks to the cost-control skills of Hilary Greaves, who has been promoted to assistant manager at GOL, leaving the catering management at St Patrick's school in Walthamstow to her deputy. Forde, meanwhile, is pulling her involvement in GOL back to one day a week, as planned. The unit should be fully staffed by mid-December.

There's plenty happening on the tender front, too, with six in the pipeline. Deas is putting the company forward for another business and industry contract with a Government office in Croydon and, although he stresses that "It's not over until the ink's dry on the contract", he is hopeful about winning a college contract, which could add £120,000 in turnover and another £12,000 in profit to the company's bottom line.

Putting seven of the company's frozen goods supply contracts and six of its dry goods contracts out to tender proved to be a bigger job than expected. Deas says it was hard to make like-for-like comparisons, as pack sizes and brands varied from company to company, but in the end there was little difference in price between suppliers. "In fact, we didn't make any changes to suppliers but we've tightened up terms with all of them," he says.

Keener pricing will benefit the national group of care homes for which Goodfellows manages the purchasing by £20,000-£25,000 a year as well as improving Goodfellows' margins by about £10,000. n