On Wednesday 20th November, our Managing Director Candice Finn, and Education Consultancy Director Joe Parfitt, were guest speakers at EP Business in Hospitality’s exclusive C-Suite dinner.
We’ve worked within the education sector for over 30 years – it’s the sector that we started in – and we’re established as the leading education food service, purchasing solutions and FM consultancy, having worked with thousands of state and independent schools to help them achieve the best value from their catering and facilities management provisions.
It was an honour to be invited to speak at the event, which brought senior leaders together to discuss key issues and challenges the education sector is facing including funding, VAT on independent school fees, staffing, ESG, food waste, and changes to work patterns and evolving education environments
This fantastic and well attended event gave everyone the opportunity to discuss the latest best practice and technology that the education sector can benefit from to withstand these challenges – turning them into opportunities create positive change and save educational establishments significant operational costs and time.
The key topics which Candice and Joe covered included:
How the role of consultancy has changed and evolved in recent years
· Covid forced a more collaborative approach, where consultants helped negotiate fair revision of deals in existing contracts
· Finding cost efficiencies has never been more important given the current economic and operating climate
· When contracts are in place, all parties need to take ownership for the success of the contract by putting monitoring in place to ensure the contract delivers and develops
· Data is king – there is a wealth of data which needs to be properly utilised and shared across all parties
The role collaboration will play in the sector
· For collaboration between educational organisations and their catering providers to fully benefit both parties, each side needs to want to work together towards mutually beneficial goals share the risks, but that requires a change of mindset
· In a climate where cost certainty is needed more than ever, particularly within state schools, value for money needs to be prioritized, as well as providing cost transparency
· This is where consultants like us can help play a role in evolving the approach, developing new contractual models and defining shared risks and rewards for all parties
How margins can be increased
· Invest in recruitment and development of quality staff at a grass roots level. Tech will never replace great people delivering an exceptional service
· Increase uptake – a lower margin but from higher turnover
· Reduce food waste which continues to be a significant issue across the sector, in respect of costs and the environment
· Achieve greater efficiencies through consolidation of standalone contracts into group contracts, clusters or joint ventures
· Use technology and AI to analyse sales, margins and labour productivity, and to internally benchmark performance
Future growth opportunities
· Group contracts as schools continue to pool resources, in both state and independent sectors. This will help attract greater skilled talent and share experience across the group
· Outsourcing of wider FM services in independent schools which in turn will increase the standards, professionalism and expertise in schools
· New innovative systems will emerge to support schools who manage their catering in-house. Our new Litmus Edge food procurement and catering management system is a great example, reducing procurement costs by up to 20%, unlocking essential funds to increase the amount of ‘spend on the plate’, as well as removing the need for multiple systems and cumbersome paperwork
What changes Litmus would most like to see across the sector
· More Government investment in free school meals funding, eligibility and monitoring of standards.
· Greater investment in the recruitment, retention and development of new talent
· Greater openness, transparency, innovation, collaboration and partnership between schools, universities and service providers.
· Increased ownership of cost management by contractors in Independent Schools
· Realisation and acceptance in the State sector that contractors need to make a profit.
It was a fascinating event – thank you to EP Business for inviting us.
The Litmus team