Independent Catering are a small company focused on providing your child with freshly prepared, healthy meals that will help your children reach their five portions of fruit and vegetables a day, they are also committed to using honest, local produce. This means that meat served can be traced back to the farm and meets or exceeds UK animal welfare standards.
Many of the vegetables used have been sourced locally which reduces the environmental impact of your child’s lunch. What’s more, all ingredients used in meals are free from additives, artificial trans fats and GMOs, and most of the food is freshly prepared by trained chefs.
 
Avoiding processed foods mean that the chef knows exactly what’s going in to the food they are preparing, and it will also ensure children can connect the food they are eating to where it came from.

A main meal and dessert will be £2.75. We set a maximum spend of £5 a day but this can be increased or decreased at parental/guardian request.

 

Food Offer

Students will be able to have breakfast, offered from 8am. This will include items such as breakfast wraps, bagels, toast, porridge, granola and much more.
Lunch will have one hot meal containing meat, a hot vegetarian option and a street food option, in addition to this they will also be serving baguettes, sandwiches and salads.
 
 

Food Serving Areas

Our canteen has had a further refresh with some investment from Independent on further updates to the service areas including graphical displays and new equipment.
 
In addition, to our current canteen service area, we will also have an outside service area and a food cart for our PGW students to use in the common room. The outside service area will be similar to a food truck you might see selling food at an event and this will be situated on the back playground providing students with snacks, sandwiches and grab-and-go food. The cart will be for PGW students and will have a coffee machine and sell similar items to that of the outside service area.
 
 

Cashless System

Please continue to top up your son/wards catering account using parent pay. We will be moving over any credit balances to the new company and parents/guardians will still top up accounts using this platform.
To improve efficiencies within the canteen Independent Catering are also introducing contactless fobs as the method of payment rather than biometric payment. This move will stop pupils having to touch a pad, instead recognising the fob rather than their finger. The contactless proximity fobs will be issued on the first day of term and linked to the cashless accounts online through Parent Pay. Fobs are linked to student photographs so can only be used by the student they are issued to. This will speed up service and stop contact of fingers at the tills. The initial fobs will be free with replacement fobs charged at £3 should they be lost. Students either place these on door keys or can place these within the back cover of their phones.
 
 

Dietary Requirements

If your son/ward has any dietary requirements please can you ensure that the main school office is aware of these so we can ensure that we share this with the catering company. If there any additions then please do share them with us in advance of September.

 

Free School Meals

We would also like to remind you that a large number of students at Greenacre Academy benefit from free school meals. Where they are entitled to this, a daily credit is added to their account.
Your son/ward may be entitled to a free school meal if you receive either:
· Employment and Support Allowance (income-related)
· Income Support
· Jobseeker’s Allowance (income-based)
· The Guarantee element of State Pension Credit
· Support under part VI of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999
· Child Tax Credit
· Universal Credit
You will not be entitled to Free School Meals if you receive any element of Working Tax Credit or if your annual household income (as assessed by HMRC) is greater than £ 16,190. Proof of your benefit will not need to be provided at this stage, however, you will be informed if any proof of benefit is required at a later date.

If you wish to apply for free school meals, you can do so online using the link below:
http://www.medway.gov.uk/schoolsandeducation/schoolmeals/applyforfreeschoolmeals.aspx


Contacting Independent Catering

Should you need or wish to contact Independent Catering directly then please feel free to email them from September at the following email address. GACatering@sflt.org.uk
 
To find out more about Independent Catering please visit their website at www.independentcatering.co.uk and watch their secondary school video which can be found by following the below link https://www.independentcatering.co.uk/secondary/
 

Emergency Food and Support in Medway

Emergency Assistance Grant