Managing catering across multiple schools presents a unique set of challenges for Multi-Academy Trusts (MATs). From controlling costs and monitoring meal uptake to ensuring compliance and supporting staff, having visibility across every site is essential.
For Shireland Trust – a leading MAT operating a growing family of primary and secondary schools across the West Midlands – which manages catering in-house across its schools, gaining that visibility has been transformative. By implementing our specialist school catering management system, Litmus Edge, the trust has been able to centralise key processes, improve operational oversight and make more informed decisions based on real-time data.
Turning data into action
One of the biggest advantages of Litmus Edge is the ability to access accurate, up-to-date information across every school within a trust. For Shireland Trust, this visibility has directly contributed to reducing food waste and improving efficiency.
As the Trust’s Chief Strategy Officer explains: “We’ve been able to reduce wastage cost within a number of sites, by seeing the data and knowing where to focus.”
Food waste remains one of the biggest financial and sustainability challenges facing school catering teams. Without clear reporting, it can be difficult to identify where issues are occurring or where improvements can be made.
By providing detailed management information at both school and trust level, Litmus Edge enables catering leaders to spot trends, identify underperforming areas and take targeted action to improve outcomes.
Increasing meal uptake through better visibility
Understanding daily performance is critical for growing school meal participation. For Shireland Trust, access to daily reporting has provided valuable insight into how individual sites are performing and where opportunities exist to increase engagement.
The Trust’s Chief Strategy Officer comments: “Meal uptake has increased by being able to see what’s happening in the daily figures report.”
Rather than waiting for end-of-month reports, catering teams can access timely information that supports quicker decision-making and allows them to respond to changing patterns in demand.
Supporting catering teams through digital transformation
Introducing new technology can sometimes raise concerns around digital confidence, particularly within busy catering environments. However, Shireland Trust found that the implementation process and ongoing support provided by the Litmus Edge team helped ensure a smooth transition.
According to the Trust’s Catering Manager: “Digital confidence was a consideration in the catering staff, but the training and support from the Edge team has been invaluable.”
Our team work closely with every school to ensure effective onboarding, practical training and responsive support that helps teams build confidence and get the most from the system.
Greater control over school ordering and simplifying HACCP compliance
Managing purchasing across multiple sites can be complex, particularly when schools operate with varying budgets and requirements. Using Litmus Edge, Shireland Trust has been able to centralise oversight of ordering activity and gain better visibility of spending patterns across its schools.
The Trust’s Catering Manager explains: “Most of our schools order through the system and so we can now track their spending.”
When it comes to food safety compliance – a critical responsibility for all school catering operations – managing multiple sites, ensuring consistent standards and maintaining accurate records can be particularly challenging.
Shireland Trust now uses Litmus Edge as its central platform for monitoring HACCP compliance across all schools. By digitising compliance processes, trusts can reduce paperwork, improve record keeping and gain confidence that food safety procedures are being followed consistently across every location.
Multi-Site catering management
Shireland Trust’s experience demonstrates how the right technology can support better decision-making, improve operational efficiency, strengthen compliance and ultimately enhance the catering service delivered to pupils.
If you’re looking to streamline your catering operations, improve performance and gain greater oversight across your schools, visit our Litmus Edge page here and discover how it can support your trust.
The Litmus team
