Our thoughtfully designed nursery menus
We pride ourselves on our menus, which go above and beyond current government guidance for Early Years Settings in the UK. So, you can rest assured that children in your nursery will receive nutritionally balanced meals prepared to the highest food safety standards.
Explore our delicious and nutritionist-approved nursery menus.
Nursery Lunch Menu
Fuel your little ones' day with delicious, nutritious lunches delivered piping hot to your nursery's doorstep.
Afternoon Tea Menu
Three delicious items to provide young children with the right balance of nutrients and energy. Afternoon teas are delivered to your nursery chilled and ready to store in the refrigerator until tea time.
Hot Tea Menu
For something a little more substantial, hot teas are delivered to you cold, to be heated at nursery at tea time.
Baby Purees Menu
And for the little ones, our baby purees menu, specially designed to preserve all nutrients and natural flavours.
Fruit Box & Breakfast Box Menu
It’s important to start the day with the right nutrients. So, let’s kick off the day with a nutritious and wholesome breakfast!
Our nursery food menus, your peace of mind
Let us handle the food, so you can focus on nurturing young minds. With Zebedees, you can rest assured that:
Our carefully prepared meals adhere to strict government guidelines for sugar and salt content, ensuring your nursery provides a healthy and nutritious meal plan for children.
Meals are prepared to meet the highest standards of food safety and hygiene.
There is a variety of nursery lunch options for every dietary need, so that children will look forward to their lunchtime.
We provide balanced, nutritious nursery meals with a twist! Our carefully curated nursery food menus are specially designed by our experienced chefs to appeal to young taste buds.
You will be supplied with seasonal nursery menus to ensure children get to enjoy a wide variety of fresh fruits and vegetables.
Our nursery meals are made with local ingredients. We ensure that we use sustainable meat, fish, and dairy suppliers who live as close to us as possible. We know where all our ingredients are sourced, packed, transported and cooked, so you can be confident your children are enjoying fresh, safe, wholesome food. We care about food miles, our planet and a sustainable future for our children.
Nursery meals awarded with the Eat Well Start Well Award scheme
At Zebedees we are very pleased to say that our nursery lunches, teas, breakfast boxes and snacks meet all requirements set out in the assessment criteria for the Eat Well Start Well Award. Any of our Surrey-based nurseries can apply for the award and will automatically meet the criteria for lunches and teas.
The Eat Well Start Well Award Scheme was developed as an initiative to promote a balanced diet in early settings and encourage healthier eating habits for children attending nursery. It forms part of the Council’s Whole Systems Approach to Obesity.
The Scheme is also open to early years care providers based in Surrey who provide nutritionally balanced meals and snacks. It provides nurseries with practical advice on menus, recipes, portion sizes, ingredient preparation and cooking methods.
Why nursery food matters
Research suggests the diets of children under 5 in the UK are often low in fibre and key vitamins and minerals, while too high in sugar and salt. As a result, more than one in five UK children currently start school overweight or obese.
That’s why:
We do not add salt to any of our dishes.
We provide plain, full-fat yoghurts with no added sugar or sweeteners.
Our nursery food menus go beyond the minimum requirements set by the government.
Children's early years play a vital role in their growth, health, development, and learning. We know that isn’t breaking news, but it's why we feel so passionate about doing a great job… it matters.
Nursery age is a key time when children establish their food preferences and eating habits, so it’s really important your nursery provides them with a good range of nutritional options.
Nutritionist-approved balanced nursery meals
As an expert nutritionist, bestselling author, mum, and owner of a successful consultancy, SR Nutrition, Charlotte Stirling-Reed brings invaluable expertise to our nursery menu development. Together, we’re campaigning for healthier food in all UK nurseries.
Charlotte says: “I’m so pleased to be working with the team at Zebedees. They do a fantastic job and I’m excited to support their menu creation and raise awareness of the importance of healthy, nutritious nursery food for young children.”
Charlotte also shares invaluable information and provides support to nurseries and parents via regular posts on our blog and social media. This includes live Q&A sessions and feeding workshops.
Whether you're a nursery worker or a parent looking for nutrition advice or lunch ideas for toddlers, keep an eye on our blog for her brilliant tips.
More about Charlotte
Charlotte Stirling-Reed is a registered nutritionist with the Association for Nutrition (AfN). Her career began with the NHS, in Maternal, Infant and Child Nutrition. Since then, Charlotte has worked with local authorities, as well as well-known brands and celebrities, including Body Coach Joe Wicks. Charlotte has spent her career empowering families to feed their children confidently.
Explore MoreOur safety & hygiene
Nursery food hygiene and safety are our priority and we are regularly inspected by an external auditor to make sure our procedures are meeting the highest standards.
Food temperature monitoring. Every day, we monitor the delivery temperatures of our nursery meals, using sample boxes that contain data logging probes. These download the temperature of the food every five minutes, so we can accurately monitor it right up until service.
Your role in ensuring the quality of your nursery food. We kindly request 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, vanilla sauce and sponge slices) as a scientific assessment has shown they’re safe to eat if they fall below 63°c for more than 2 hours.
Your trusted nursery food supplier. We’re a UK approved food business registered with Wealden District Council that delivers nursery meals to East Sussex, West Sussex, Kent, London, Brighton, Surrey and Essex.
We adhere to strict food safety standards. We operate in compliance with The Food Safety and Hygiene (England) Regulations 2013 and Regulation No. 852/2004 on the Hygiene of Foodstuffs. We have also been approved under Regulation 853/2004. Our approval number is WE069 and we are listed on the Food Standards Agency website. As we are an approved nursery catering company we only use approved companies for our high-risk products: meat, fish and dairy.
Allergen-aware nursery meals. We are committed to offering wholesome food that cater to all dietary needs. 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.
Our Nut Policy. The Company does not use any nut products and/or nut derivatives in any Goods and provides food menuswhich highlight for each food item/meal which of the 14 allergens covered by Retained Regulation (EU) No. 1169/2011 are present. Suitable alternative meals will be provided on request. However, the Company does not guarantee that any of the products which are provided by its suppliers have not come into contact with nuts, nut derivatives or any other allergens, prior to their supply to the Company, and therefore the Company cannot accept responsibility for any reaction that any person may have to any Goods. The Company accepts no liability and will not be liable for any claim, however caused, arising from any incident involving any person’s allergy, whether it be a nut allergy or otherwise.
Supporting children's special dietary needs. We provide an allergen advice sheet, in accordance with the Retained Regulation (EU) No. 1169/2011, to help with the management of special diets in our nurseries. We work closely with our nutritionist when designing our nursery meals.