Northern College ~ Catering Tender

The Requirement

The successful Supplier will be required to provide catering services for Northern College.

The catering service provision is currently managed by the Thomas Franks on a 5 year contract which expires at the end of December 2024. To ensure that best value principles are applied the Governors and Senior Leaders of the College have decided to tender the catering services.

Northern College is the only residential college for adults to re-enter education, gain employment or to make career change through immersive residential learning and specialist support.

The catering service provides breakfast, lunch and supper service for, Monday-Friday, 48 weeks, and a limited service for up to 11 weekends per year

In 2023-24 Catering costs was around £270k

Objectives

We want our catering company to offer a high quality service to all our students, staff and visitors that matches the educational experience they receive on a daily basis all of the essential abilities and skills to provide an outstanding catering service to our students, staff and visitors at our College.

You should have the knowledge of how to provide exceptional dining experiences in Colleges, manage staff and the whole catering function.

Providing a high quality and reliable catering service has a major effect on the whole learning experience for all our students, staff and visitors and this is why the College is passionate about having very high quality catering facilities, with excellent food choices which are nutritionally balanced for everyone. Having excellent customer care, the caterer should be polite, diplomatic and thoughtful while dealing with all our students, staff and visitors.

We are looking for a refreshing and innovative approach that reflects, amongst other things, the changing profile of student life and their food preferences and types and preferred styles of dining including a wide range of vegan and vegetarian options which is very popular with our student body.

It’s essential to the college that the contractors bidding for this tender think broadly about all issues and not just the core catering service to compete and be successful in obtaining the contract of the college. We would like the contractors to always be on the lookout for new ways of doing things, coming up with new solutions for many common problems such as how you have dealt with the cost of living crisis in managing price increases

Contractors are requested to ensure they consider all the aspects of service delivery and think carefully about the catering requirements.

The College already knows that the successful provision of catering services is very much dependent on the development of a good working relationship between the Client of a facility and the contractor’s catering manager and catering team on site. The contractor is expected to use its best endeavours to cultivate such a relationship to benefit the smooth running of each establishment.

Key factors for the College are:

•A service that offers a light breakfast, light lunch and a cooked evening meal

•A model which is cost effective with high quality service and flexibility (to cover weekends as well as extended hours)

•A suitable and workable staffing structure to ensure that sufficient catering services will be provided every day.

•Flexibility of service delivery.

•What cover arrangements will be applied when inevitably some staff are off with illness.

•Management involvement.

•Monitoring of standards and service delivery.

•Availability and responsiveness of Management to any issues raised.

•Ability to provide hospitality for events and meetings outside of core working hours. With a clear cost structure.

The new contract will commence on 1 January 2025, for an initial 3 year term with the option of additional 2 x 1 year extensions.

For the avoidance of doubt, TUPE Regulations will apply to this contract.

Please see SQ Document for more information. Additional information: To respond to this opportunity please click here: litmustms.co.uk/respond/G92HDZ7U65 ↗