{"id":2224,"date":"2014-07-22T09:32:23","date_gmt":"2014-07-22T09:32:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/?p=2224"},"modified":"2014-07-22T15:04:43","modified_gmt":"2014-07-22T15:04:43","slug":"school-meals-team-is-the-best-in-the-country","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/school-meals-team-is-the-best-in-the-country\/","title":{"rendered":"School meals team is the best in the country"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Lutfur<\/a>Children in Tower Hamlets are enjoying the best school meals service in the country, it has been announced.
\nTower Hamlets Council\u2019s Contract Services team, which provides 24,000 local children with lunches every day, was named Catering Business of the Year at the annual Lead Association for Education Catering (LACA) Awards \u2013 the Oscars of the school catering industry.
\nJudges said it had made an \u201coutstanding\u201d contribution to catering for schools in the local area.
\nIt is the second time the team has won the award, following on from its 2005 success, and Tower Hamlets is the first council to have won the accolade twice.
\nThe prestigious award, the highest honour in the industry, comes as the council is about to start providing free school meals for every primary school pupil in the borough.
\nTower Hamlets Mayor Lutfur Rahman said: \u201cI am hugely proud of this award and cannot thank the Contract Services team enough for all their hard work.
\n\u201cOur schools are rightly regarded as being among the best in the country, if not the world \u2013 and providing children with hot, healthy, nutritious meals is a significant factor in this success. Healthy children make better learners, and this is why we have taken the bold step of providing free meals for all our primary school pupils.\u201d
\nThe council supplies meals for almost all 100 primary and secondary schools in the borough, all of which are cooked fresh in the schools\u2019 kitchens.
\nEvery day it provides 24,000 meals in schools, which will rise to more than 30,000 a day from September when the council\u2019s free school meals policy is introduced. Under the scheme, every primary school pupil, regardless of their family\u2019s income, will receive a free school meal. This is going beyond the government\u2019s new scheme, which will provide meals up until Year 2.
\nCllr Gulam Robbani, cabinet member for children\u2019s services, said: \u201cOn behalf of the children and the parents of this borough, I would like to thank the Contract Services team for their magnificent achievements. After all, it is the children of Tower Hamlets who benefit from their outstanding hard work.\u201d
\nMichael Hales is the manager of the Contract Services team. He said: \u201cMy team and I are absolutely delighted to have been recognised in this way for a second time.
\n\u201cIt demonstrates the dedication and commitment that all the catering team – from the kitchen assistants serving the food each day to my management team – put into to providing the best services we can in changing and challenging times.
\n\u201cWe are looking forward to providing free school meals for all primary school pupils from September.\u201d
\nThe LACA Awards were held in Birmingham on Thursday, July 10.
\nThe Catering Business of the Year award recognised Tower Hamlets\u2019 achievements in providing an extra 4,000 meals from last September, when its initial free school meals scheme, for Reception and Year 1 pupils, was introduced. The idea was soon picked up by the government and rolled out nationwide to also include Year 2 pupils.
\nTower Hamlets has now expanded its scheme even further, by including Years 3, 4, 5 and 6 from the start of the next academic year in September.
\nThe service holds the Silver Food for Life Catering Mark, an official stamp of approval from the Soil Association that all its food is organic, fresh and from sustainable sources. It hopes to achieve the Gold standard by 2015.
\nThe Contract Services team also cleans half of the schools across Tower Hamlets and prepares and delivers hot, fresh meals to elderly and vulnerable people in the community through its Meals on Wheels services. It is the only London borough to cook fresh Meals on Wheels each day. It also prepares Hackney Council\u2019s Meals on Wheels.<\/p>\n

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