THE ZEBEDEES STORY
Becoming the leading nursery meals provider in East Sussex, West Sussex, Kent, London, Brighton, Surrey and Essex doesn’t just happen overnight…
The Zebedees story began over 20 years ago, when good friends and professionally trained chefs Philip Oates & Steve Parsons identified a gap in the children's nursery meal market.
They recognised the need for a service that would provide hot and nutritious nursery meals to settings with limited kitchen space (and time!).
Zebedees has now grown to 90 members of staff and delivers to over 275 customers throughout the South East – whilst still maintaining the same friendly, personal feel.
Book your Free Taster!
The best way to see how our nursery catering service will fit into your daily routine is to try it. We believe our nursery food speaks for itself and offer a no-obligation taster service. You can enjoy a selection from our current menu including nursery lunches and afternoon tea. We’d be delighted to come and visit your nursery in East Sussex, West Sussex, Kent, London, Brighton, Surrey or Essex.
Who We Are
Ethical Credentials
We believe in the importance of promoting fresh, local food when creating our nursery meals. Zebedees work closely with local suppliers from Kent & Sussex, thus ensuring we keep our food miles to a minimum. This guarantees that we receive excellent quality fresh ingredients and services at a price that is fair to both parties.
Our Meat
We buy our meat from sustainable suppliers as locally as possible. The sausages used in our nursery meals are produced by a local Kent based supplier, who make them to our own low-salt specification.
Our Fish
Our fish we use in our nursery meals comes from a UK approved supplier that is totally committed to sustainable sourcing from well managed fisheries.
Our Dairy
We use a range of dairy farms for our nursery meal ingredients, including one that produces us our own full fat yoghurts with no added sugar, and another that produces our custom-sized tubs of ice cream and frozen yoghurt.
From Farm to Fork
Our nursery meals can be traced from farm to fork. We know where the ingredients are sourced, packed, transported and cooked. And we deliver to nurseries in East Sussex, West Sussex, Kent, London, Brighton, Surrey and Essex. We are confident that our children are enjoying fresh, safe and wholesome food.
Recycling
We are committed to reducing waste and actively recycling everything we can, from both our nursery meals catering and general business operations, at our premises near Lewes, East Sussex. Amongst other initiatives, we have installed a heat transfer unit, updated our lighting to more efficient models and purchased a baler to bale and sell waste cardboard.
Green Waste
We divert over 50 tonnes of waste annually from landfill to an In-Vessel Composting Facility, where it is converted into high quality compost.
Cardboard Waste
We divert over 20 tonnes of waste cardboard packaging annually from landfill to a cardboard pulping company that then recycle the pulp.
Metal Waste
We divert over 16 tonnes of waste metal annually from landfill to metal recycling companies.
Paper Waste
Our office paper is reused and then recycled through various paper recycling schemes.
Water Waste
We have a water treatment plant that processes our waste water and returns it clean into the water course, reducing the load on regional water treatment plants.
Electrical Waste
We also recycle old computers, mobile phones, printer cartridges, fluorescent tubes, wooden pallets, and unwanted equipment.
It is our commitment to continue carrying out these procedures for the future of our planet and generations to come.
We are currently working towards our Silver Certificate under the Steps to Environmental Management Scheme (STEM), demonstrating our ongoing commitment to reducing our carbon footprint.
Energy Saving
We are committed to reducing energy, water and waste at our premises near Lewes, East Sussex. Amongst other initiatives, we have installed a heat transfer unit, updated our lighting to more efficient models and purchased a baler to bale and sell waste cardboard.
Within all our WCs we have installed low energy hand-driers.
There is a car sharing policy in place to reduce the number vehicles used to transport our staff to work.
We are in the process of installing vehicle charge points within our carpark and changing to hybrid and electric vehicles.
We have installed a photovoltaic solar system to our premises which is capable of producing up to 60 kw per hour.
We are currently working towards our Silver Certificate under the Steps to Environmental Management Scheme (STEM), demonstrating our ongoing commitment to reducing our carbon footprint.
We have replaced all of our toilets with Propelair toilets, which use only 1.5 litres of water, saving around 84% compared to standard toilets.
We have purchased a Hobart Warewasher, which saves 500,000 litres of water per year at our usage, compared to conventional industrial dishwashers
We have a water treatment plant that processes our waste water and returns it clean into the water course, reducing the load on regional water treatment plants
Food Hygiene & Safety
We are a privately owned contract catering company based in Laughton, East Sussex. We are a UK approved food business registered with Wealden District Council for nursery meals delivered to East Sussex, West Sussex, Kent, London, Brighton, Surrey and Essex.
We operate in compliance with The Food Safety and Hygiene (England) Regulations 2013 and Regulation (EC) No. 852/2004 on the Hygiene of Foodstuffs. We have also been approved under EC Regulations 853/2004. Our approval number is EC WE069 UK and we are listed on the Food Standards Agency website. As we are an approved company we only use approved companies for our high-risk products: meat, fish and dairy.
We meet current Food Standards Agency Information Regulation regarding allergens. All our allergen information can be found listed next to each menu in our Nursery Menu Information Packs. Our nursery meals are microbiologically tested by an accredited laboratory every 3 months, as is our water. We also have a minimum £10 million public liability insurance cover.
Monitoring
Each day we monitor the temperatures of our nursery meals during delivery, using sample boxes that contain data logging probes. These download the temperature of the food every five minutes, so we can accurately monitor it up until service. Therefore, in the unlikely event that the food is outside of the legal standard at service, we are able to demonstrate that this period of time will be minimal and has not exceeded a 2-4 hour period.
Procedures
We ensure the hot food reaches at least 90°c before it is loaded into our Thermoport boxes. This initial temperature and the type of containers/delivery times have been tested to ensure that when the food is delivered to you, it is as hot as possible. The chilled food is delivered below 8°c.
Hot Food
We ask that you probe your main courses following our serving guidelines just before service and record the temperature on the sheets provided. We do not require you to probe the hot side dishes (rice, pasta, potatoes, vegetables, custard, sponge and crumble) as we have undertaken a scientific assessment which shows they are safe to eat if these dishes fall below 63°c for more than 2 hours. All our nursery meals are made to be eaten at lunchtime on the day of delivery and not to be cooled down for reheating or freezing for consumption at a later time or date.