TAYSIDE CONTRACTS INVESTS IN

IT TO STREAMLINE CATERING OPERATION

 

The largest local authority catering provider in Tayside has made a significant IT investment that will streamline its catering operation and provide full nutritional analysis of the meals being served.

 

Tayside Contracts, the commercial trading arm for three local authorities, Angus, Dundee City and Perth & Kinross, has invested in the state-of-the-art IT system, Saffron Spice as part of its continuing strategy to achieve a high standard of service and best value.

 

The system, which is supplied by hospitality solutions specialist Fretwell-Downing Hospitality, is specifically geared to improving the quality and timeliness of information so that better decisions can be made on managing food, labour and material costs, thereby achieving greater financial control.

 

Within Tayside Contracts, Saffron has been installed to manage the whole business process from detailed stock tracking, production, outlet sales as well as nutritional analysis. Saffron will be used to improve the weekly returns reporting on school meals. `Tay cuisine`, Tayside Contracts’ `cook-chill` central production unit where both welfare and hospitality catering is carried out, will also gain equal benefits whilst achieving greater efficiencies throughout. 

 

Tayside’s school meals will be nutritionally balanced, having been analysed against Saffron’s full McCance and Widdowson nutritional database and benchmarked against Scotland’s Hungry For Success standards. Particularly in the light of rising food prices, the system will be instrumental at the menu planning stage by providing an immediate breakdown of costs so that ingredients can be fine-tuned accordingly. 

 

Bill Kennedy, Catering Services Manager commented: “As a catering operator with 225 units and an annual food and consumable budget of over £2.4 million, it has become essential that we adopted a sophisticated management solution that gathers data from all sites on a weekly basis, helps nutritionally analyse and plan menus, and produces food labelling information in-line with legislative requirements critical to the current future expansion of our business.  

 

Andrew Markwell, sales director for Fretwell-Downing Hospitality added: “We are delighted to be working in partnership with Tayside Contracts as the company is at the forefront of continuously improving the school meals and social catering services across the region. Through Saffron Spice, Tayside will now be able to obtain menu costings as well as full nutritional analysis of the recipes, and increase the efficiency of the weekly returns process.”