How to Choose a Catering Company for Your Nursery

2nd April 2025

Whether you're a managing director of a small nursery or a huge chain of Early Years settings, choosing the right catering company is a very important decision. With young children’s health and wellbeing at stake, ensuring a high standard for each nursery meal, from a hot nursery lunch to ready to serve snacks, is essential.

Many nurseries do not have the proper in-house facilities or enough resources to run a kitchen and prepare hot and nutritious meals for the children in their care every day. In these cases, having a nursery catering partner who can ensure each meal is both healthy and nutritious is the best option.

However, it’s important to make the right choice from the start to avoid disruption to your nursery meal service and ensure a long-lasting collaboration.

Our blog will walk you through the key factors to consider, constructive tips, and best practices for making an informed decision and creating a successful long-term partnership with a nursery catering company.

Key Factors to Consider When Choosing a Nursery Catering Company

There are a few important things to consider when choosing a nursery catering company:

Quality and Compliance With Food Guidelines
Proven Quality Through Industry Recognition
Food Safety Standards
Menu Flexibility and Dietary Requirements
Experience with Nurseries
Delivery and Service Options
Review Contracts Carefully
Schedule a Tasting

Quality and Compliance With Food Guidelines

One of the first things to assess is, of course, the quality of the food and the ingredients used. Fresh, locally sourced ingredients and the inclusion of products in season, such as seasonal fruit boxes, are important indicators of a caterer that cares for the health of children and the environment. Choosing local produce and offering seasonal nursery menus helps reduce the carbon footprint while ensuring children receive the right vitamins and minerals from fresh ingredients.

Every nursery meal should not only taste great but also support the growth and development of young children while meeting government guidelines for nutrition, with low sugar and salt content. You should ensure the provider follows such guidelines and whether they have professional nutritionists among the staff who can ensure children follow a healthy, balanced diet.

Proven Quality Through Industry Recognition

We’d recommend checking if the caterer has won awards that prove their dedication and professionalism. For example, we are proud to have been awarded the Health Hero Award at the 2025 Food Manufacture Excellence Awards and the Eat Well Start Well Award in 2023.

Food Safety Standards

Food safety is non-negotiable. Make sure the caterers adhere to rigorous hygiene protocols and comply with local food guidelines and regulations, such as The Food Safety and Hygiene (England) Regulations 2013 and the Hygiene of Foodstuffs. Furthermore, you should check if it’s listed on the Food Standards Agency website.

A trusted nursery catering company will always prioritise safety and maintain strict standards in every aspect of food preparation.

Meeting diverse dietary needs has never been more important. Catering companies should be able to accommodate a range of dietary requirements. Whether it’s food allergies, vegetarian meal options, or special cultural needs, menu flexibility is key. The best nursery caterers will allow for some menu customisation and communicate regularly with your nursery staff to create menus that meet the unique dietary requirements of the children in your care.

For example, here at Zebedees, we are committed to supporting children’s special dietary needs by providing an allergen advice sheet, as you can see on our lunch menu, in accordance with the Retained Regulation (EU) No. 1169/2011, to help with the management of special diets in nurseries. Every child deserves to enjoy their mealtime.

Experience with Nurseries or Institutions

Experience counts. Look for potential caterers who have a proven track record with nurseries and schools. Read case studies, online reviews and testimonials and gather feedback from other nurseries and schools which can offer important insights into their performance, customer service, and ability to deliver nutritious meals consistently.

Partnerships with well-known institutions such as hospitals or charities can also be a strong indicator of quality and reliability. We are proud to say that Zebedees work in partnership with some important institutions like the NHS, Nuffield Health and West Sussex Council, to name a few.

Delivery and Service Options

Ask the caterer to clarify their delivery process. Do they offer a real-time trackable delivery? How are meals delivered? The caterers should offer options that are ready to serve, ensuring that every meal is delivered in appropriate containers, at the correct temperature, and without any spillage. Whether it’s a packed nursery lunch or a full meal service, consistency is important.

If you have in-house chefs but are considering switching to a caterer, a great way to test its reliability and quality is to try the caterer’s emergency meal cover service, if they offer one, whenever your kitchen staff is off sick or on holiday.

Review Contracts Carefully

Last but not least, consider the price of the service and the contract. Ensure you read the contract terms carefully before signing to avoid surprises later. Key elements to look for in catering agreements include:

Pricing structures and rates. Prices are often calculated per child, per meal, but are there other factors that might affect meal costs, like portion sizes, ingredients or dietary requirements? Some providers may also charge separate delivery fees, especially for smaller orders or distant locations. Finally, how often are prices adjusted?
Delivery charges. For example, do prices include delivery fees or are these calculated separately?
Notice periods. Before entering into any catering agreement, you should carefully review the contract's terms and conditions, paying close attention to the notice period clause.
VAT. It is very important to understand what rate of VAT is being applied to what items within the catering contract and whether the quoted prices include or exclude VAT.
Minimum order requirements. Identify minimum order requirements and whether your nursery can meet them.

Clarifying these aspects from the start will help prevent future misunderstandings and build a strong foundation for your catering partnership.

Schedule a Tasting Session

Finally, before making any decisions, check if the caterer offers a no-obligation taster session and arrange the tasting. Sampling the caterer's food firsthand is an invaluable step in assessing the taste, quality and presentation of the meals. Tasting the food before committing to a contract also provides a chance to interact with the catering staff, see how their service fits into your daily routine and if the quality meets your standards.

Best Practices for a Smooth Catering Partnership

You've picked a food company for your nursery. Now, you want it to last. Staying with the same catering company helps keep meals consistent and saves you from the hassle of finding someone new.

Here's how to build a good, lasting partnership:

Establish Clear Expectations

Make sure you understand what to expect right from the start. This includes discussing how meals are prepared and delivered, dietary requirements or changes in menus. Clear understanding helps to ensure that the meals provided meet the high standards you expect.

Regular Feedback

Ongoing communication is essential in any partnership. Regular feedback sessions with your catering staff can help improve the service. Evaluate the Performance

One of the most important things to do in long–term collaborations is setting up metrics to assess the service quality over time. Some of the aspects you should monitor are:

Timeliness of meal delivery: Are meals delivered on time?
Accuracy of dietary labelling. Are dietary meals labelled clearly and correctly at all times?
Consistency in delivering all meals ordered. Keep a record of issues with meals not being delivered in full and the number of times this occurred.
Maintain correct food temperatures and proper container integrity without spillage.
Type of food. Are the meals prepared appropriate for young children? This means, for example, ensuring they are not too spicy or complex and difficult to eat.
Quality and freshness of the food and overall satisfaction levels based on feedback from children, parents, and nursery staff.
Keep track of the number of complaints from parents and the number of meals eaten.
Food hygiene and cleanliness of catering equipment used to deliver daily meals.

Final Thoughts

The quality of meals children receive in childcare is just as important as their meals at home, and choosing the right catering company for your nursery can be a game changer.

Looking for the perfect nursery catering company? Book a free, no-obligation tasting session today and take the first step toward providing exceptional nursery food for your early years program.

Try before you buy

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