Catering services for schools - free school meals
2 Sep 2025 11:06 AM
To book onto one of ESPO’s Catering Services (704) webinars for education customers, please click here.
School dinners make up a significant portion of many children’s diets and for some, this will be their main meal of the day for five days of the week. Following the government's announcement that over half a million more children are to get free school meals, it's now more important than ever to ensure the catering service provision you have in place is right for your school and that pupils are offered healthy, nutritious meals daily – especially with catering being one of the largest procurements your school is likely to do.
ESPO's Department for Education (DfE) approved framework, Catering Services (704), has been put in place to ensure that a high-quality and great-value catering service can be achieved. We are also supporting customers by hosting catering webinars – please read below for more details of how to book on.
Why choose ESPO?
We always work with one objective in mind: making your procurement process as seamless and simple as possible! When sourcing your services through this framework, you can be sure that they are:
Fully compliant
- All frameworks are compliant with UK procurement regulations, making the process stress-free and efficient, ensuring you have peace of mind.
Trusted suppliers
- Customer satisfaction, finances, social values and much more are checked prior to awarding service providers a position on our frameworks.
Benefits
This framework offers the following benefits:
- Market-leading suppliers – Including large, medium and small organisations who are all experts in their field.
- Comprehensive support – Further competition templates and supporting guidance is available through ESPO to help you run through a fully compliant procurement process with no hidden costs.
- Collaboration – The framework is open to individual customers or customers who would like to collaborate and go out to tender as a group rather than individually.
- Value-added services – Alongside the provision of meals, the caterers can add a raft of value-added services such as meal planning, nutritional guidance and training, and social value initiatives.
- DfE-approved – The framework is approved by the Department for Education and is on their Find a Framework service.
Catering webinars
ESPO regularly host webinars to assist schools and academy trusts with using the framework to procure a fully compliant catering service. Our experienced food category team guide you through the step-by-step process of putting in place a catering service that meets the needs of your school.
The sessions provide:
- An indicative procurement timeline, from initial planning to contract award and implementation/mobilisation.
- A breakdown of documentation: what to include, and hints and tips to procure a bespoke and well-rounded catering service.
- An insight on the experiences of other schools/trusts who have used the framework.
- FAQs and key takeaways.
- A summary of further support available via ESPO.
ESPO is presenting additional catering webinars this year! These webinars are presented in two stages and details of the dates and times can be found here.
Customer feedback
Castle Phoenix Trust appointed a service provider using ESPO's Catering Services framework (704):
Ian Houghton, Head of Estates, Castle Phoenix Trust, said:
"Since using the framework, our trust has saved around £15k on each of the school contracts. This has allowed us to spend the savings on other important projects around the school. When speaking to our schools, they confirm they are really happy with the service which is being provided, and as a result of the service and quality, our school meal uptake has increased.”
If you have any questions or would like further information about Framework 704, please get in touch with our Food & Catering team on 0116 294 4008 or food@espo.org.
To access the Catering Services framework (704) webpage, please click here.
To book onto one of ESPO’s Catering Services webinars for education customers, please click here.
