Who are School Food Matters?
School Food Matters (SFM) want to see a school food system that delivers for every child, so that:
- Every child eats nutritious, delicious and sustainable food during their time at school
- Every child leaves school with an informed and positive relationship with food
Their mission is to campaign for a better school food system. They support schools, local authorities and trusts to improve food in schools – and they teach children and young people about cooking, growing and enjoying food for their health and happiness.
SFM do some fantastic work with schools and their impact is demonstrable. We are huge champions of their work!
SFM's requirement
SFM reached out to RIVA as some of the schools they support had questions about procurement and outsourced catering, and they knew we were experts in both areas – with catering being one of our specialisms.
SFM wanted to upskill their staff so as they were more proficient in both procurement and contract management best practice, so as they may advise their schools efficiently and effectively, when needed.
We were delighted to have the opportunity to partner with them and share our knowledge and expertise, knowing this would be passed on to schools to make a positive difference!
They also commissioned us to review, revise and update their catering specification which again were delighted to engage in, to assure as many schools as possible receive the best catering solution possible.
Training days
RIVA wrote two bespoke training sessions for SFM that were delivered directly by our Founder Rachel O’Grady over 2 days at the SFM offices in London, and it was very well received.
A lot of the training we deliver is centred around the Procurement Act, whats new, rules and regs, procedures, notices, timescales and how to remain compliant, but SFM had a different requirement.
Here we agreed to focus on 4 main areas that would be more relevant to their requirements and would deliver clear, practical guidance and specific tools to take away and deploy.
1 – Procurement – what could go wrong, why, how to mitigate and correct
2 – Procurement – best practice
3 – Contract Management – why is my catering contract not working?
4 – Contract management – best practice
Outcome
The training was very well received! A particularly nice comment from one attendee:
“I never knew procurement could be so zesty and fun!”
We were delighted, as we are very passionate about both procurement and catering services in schools – both of which have great scope to really make a difference!
