Local Kitchen is Wigan Council’s very own food service and is a not-for-profit organisation, which provides approximately 23,000 meals a day for primary schools, high schools and special schools throughout the borough along with providing additional catering services for hospitality and community support.
We provide an individual service to everyone, creating bespoke menus for schools that always meet the Government School Food Guidelines. We also work with schools to offer advice and support on curriculum activities.
Delicious, varied and ethically-sourced food
The food from Local Kitchen is fresh, seasonal and high quality. Our ingredients are free from trans fats, harmful additives, and GM, and better for animal welfare, all while keeping food miles to a minimum.
We limit foods that are high in saturated fat, sugar, and salt and promote oily fish, whole grains, healthy fruit, and vegetables and always include fruit-based desserts and yoghurts.
All our menus meet the School Food Standards (external link), providing a nutritionally balanced meal, based on a high fibre, low sugar and low salt diet.
Our meat products are all UK and ethically sourced and we are one of only a few local authority caterers to hold the Good Egg Award, which recognises companies that use cage free eggs or egg products.
We constantly review menus and market trends and have significantly increased vegetarian and vegan ranges with a commitment to add to this year on year, whilst developing and introducing a plant-based range of meals. We want to promote healthier lifestyles, encouraging children to try new foods, and providing a high quality, value for money service.
Our environmental commitment
We’re committed to sustainability, so you can trust us to do the right thing when it comes to the environment. Whether it’s swapping to compostable packaging, banning all plastic bottles, or reducing food waste, we go beyond school meals to make sure everything we do has a positive impact on the planet.
Since September 2018, the company has not only minimised the use of single use plastics in packaging but introduced compostable products and recycle wherever possible and continue to work hard to reduce food waste.
We are working with suppliers and schools to meet government challenges of schools becoming plastic free by 2022. We're doing this by replacing straws, plastic bottles and other items with more sustainable alternatives. We're also currently in talks with suppliers to provide packaging items that are plant based and compostable in a domestic compost environment, and manufactured in the UK.
Local suppliers
Local Kitchen is just that we source 95% of our food locally, supporting local producers right here on our doorstep and keeping food miles to a minimum. In fact, most of our fresh vegetables are farmed just 12 miles away and our morning goods are freshly baked in the bakery just over seven miles from our main office.
We are committed to community wealth building ensuring that this puts people at the heart of local economic development to create a fairer and more equal local economy. It redirects wealth back into the local economy, for the benefit of local people.
For us, this means supporting local producers and reinvesting profits back into Council services for the local community. It also means that all our staff are paid the Wigan Living Wage.
High-quality service
We guarantee a modern, efficient school meals service thanks to our electronic ordering and payment systems. This allows children to order their food, identifies any allergens and dietary requirements and means parents can top up digitally rather than dealing with cash. It also means we only prepare food that is ordered, reducing food waste, and speeding up service.
Embracing and developing technology, along with adopting a more digital approach to delivering school meal provisions also ensures environmental issues and challenges are supported whilst delivering an efficient and effective service.