Celebrating 33 years’ of service on International School Meals Day
Left: Cheryl Petrie, Senior Area Manager and Right: Maureen Ashley, Area Manager
To mark International School Meals Day 2022 on 10th March 2022 and school meals past, present, and future we wanted to share our ‘food story’ with you and celebrate a very special colleague, Area Manager Maureen Ashley.
Maureen is one of our four dedicated Area Managers and she is due to retire at the end of March, after 33 years working for City Catering Southampton. Who better to talk to and reflect on how schools meals have changed over the years!
Maureen started working for City Catering on 4th September 1989. She joined as a Catering Assistant at Bitterne Park Secondary School, and then moved to Bitterne CE Primary School and finally Bellemoor Secondary School (now known as Upper Shirley High School).
Maureen’s now good friend and Senior Area Manager at the time, Cheryl Petrie, supported Maureen in applying for the Area Manager role in 2000 and she was successful. Never looking back, Maureen has supported many school kitchen teams, worked closely with Headteachers, Business Managers, School Admin teams all across the city of Southampton.
Past
School meals have changed so much over the years. When Maureen first started in the late 80’s - when our organisation was still a part of the local council - a typical school lunch would be corned beef hash, and bread pudding for dessert.
In 1980, School Meal Nutritional Standards were abolished and by the 90’s a typical school meal would be potato smiley faces, baked beans and turkey twizzlers – all served up for 50p! Whilst popular with children, it wasn’t always the healthiest meal.
In 1988, then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher ended Free School Meal Entitlement for thousands of families across the UK. This meant that nearly 500,000 children lost their right to free school meals. Read more, in this article published by The Guardian.
Present
Thankfully, today we have Free School Meals and Universal Infant Free School Meals, which helps so many families across the UK. This means that all children in Key Stage 1 are entitled to a free meal, and those in low-income households can also access hot meals.
School meals are mainly based on nutrition and at City Catering, we follow the School Food Plan, which was devised in 2013, to ensure our recipes are always ‘healthy approved’ and offer children a balance across the menu.
Our Menu Development Team spend a lot of time planning the menus, which are also Food for Life Bronze Award accredited, making sure each dish is not only tasty but nutritious too. We are always adding new or improved recipes to the menu; it’s an ongoing process behind the scenes. You can now follow our Food team on Instagram to discover more.
We also regularly listen to feedback from School Council Meetings and send regular surveys out to schools to get their invaluable feedback, allowing us to plan for the next set of menus, making them even better each time. We also make as many recipes available online for families to enjoy healthy, tasty meals at home. All the recipes can be found on our Cooking at Home page.
Future
Looking forward to the future, we are continually boosting the number of meals cooked from scratch, increasing the veg portions available in our meals, and offering new flavours from across the world for children to enjoy.
We strive to lead the way with the revolution of school meals and are constantly looking at ways to improve and develop our school menus and push the boundaries.
Interview with Maureen Ashley, Area Manager
Our Marketing Executive, Tina Bowness recently sat down with Maureen to look back on her time at City Catering Southampton, and ask her a few questions about school meals, her top moments, and her plans for retirement.
What year did you start working for City Catering?
“I started working for City Catering in 1989, when the uniform was pink and white striped, and you were lucky if your dress (uniform) had more than one button left on it! It was the luck of the draw on the day”
What was the first school kitchen you worked in?
“The first school kitchen I worked in was Bitterne Park Secondary School, I worked 7.5 hours a week, 1.5 hours a day, as that’s all that was available at the time. Back then, the kitchen jobs were very popular as they were so convenient for parents, so you would be put on a waiting list. I worked at Bitterne Park Secondary School for 4-5 years.”
Do you think school meals are better today than when you first started?
“Yes, of course they are! At Bitterne CE Primary, we’d be serving up dishes like luncheon meat, mashed potato and beans, to children.
Then at Bitterne Park Secondary, we used to have liver & bacon, fried breakfast, and we’d make about 300 sweet buns a day and ice them, donuts in the fryer. At Secondary Schools, there would be cakes, biscuits, flapjack, and donuts every day.
At both, Bitterne Park Secondary and Bellemoor Secondary, there would be pizza, sausage rolls, spring rolls, pies, on the menu every day at both break and lunchtime. At Bellemoor, we had two vending machines, one with fizzy drinks and one full of sweets!
School meals are definitely better now.”
What’s your favourite memory of working for City Catering?
“That’s a difficult one Tina! (Maureen laughs) There’s so many to choose from, but I would say the laughter with colleagues, over the years. There has been so many of these moment, but the one lady that stands out is Mrs P! Cheryl Petrie for those of you that didn’t have the pleasure of working with her, my friend and manager, at the time.
I met Cheryl at Bellemoor and we hit it off straight away! I have fond memories of the team there. We had Domestic Science Day where we’d teach the staff to cook biscuits, cakes and bread on a Friday. “
What is your all-time favourite school meal, including dessert?
“I just loved our homemade quiche, I used to love it with salad, making them and eating them. My favourite pudding has to be bread pudding, an old recipe from many years ago. There’s lemon love cake, that is lovely and still makes an appearance on our Theme Day menus, chocolate sponge with pink custard, and Eccles cakes - yummy!! The Eccles cakes were Ray’s favourite, another colleague from the past that I think of dearly.”
What’s your proudest memory?
“One of my proudest memories is never failing to deliver a lunchtime service to our schools, in the 33 years, I’ve worked here.
Another one would be seeing people that interviewed for Catering Assistant vacancies, years ago, now running their own kitchens, as Heads of Kitchen.
There’s Tracey at Banister Primary School, Kerry at Weston Shore Infant School, Caroline at St Patrick’s Catholic Primary, Laura who was Head of Kitchen at St Mark’s CE Primary and now works in the Menu Development Team, Head Office. There’s too many to name them all but they know who they are.
I feel a real sense of pride when I see them, knowing how far they’ve all come.”
What will you miss the most about working for City Catering Southampton?
“I will miss the people most. I wouldn’t be able to do my job without the support of all our teams in our schools, who work so, so hard, every day. The support of everyone at the office. We are a brilliant team and I will miss everyone so much.
I will miss the children too, the funny questions that they come out with, their happy faces, and the buzz of the dining hall when they’re all sat eating.”
“You didn’t ask me what I won’t miss? The early morning phone calls!”
What are your plans for retirement?
“I plan to spend some quality time with my four beautiful grandchildren. Me and Trev want to go travelling, soak up some sunshine. I’m sure they’ll be some lunch dates with Mrs P!”