May 2008
The background
East Anglia Food Link (EAFL) works to support sustainable food systems,
particularly local food systems which minimise the ‘food miles’ between producers, processors and consumers. Over the past three years EAFL have been working with East of England Local Education Authorities (LEAs) to find ways to source local produce.
This case study relates to work carried out with Suffolk, Hertfordshire and Cambridgeshire County Councils Catering Departments. All three authorities source their meat primarily in frozen form.
The meat is distributed to schools by the big frozen distributors – 3663, Brakes and Hopwells. However, all three were already making extensive use of ‘nominated supplier’ arrangements to buy meat. This means that the LEA caterer identifies the meat supplier (butcher or manufacturer) and agrees a price with that supplier. The supplier puts the meat product into the distributor by pallet and the distributor handles the distribution to schools (including ordering and invoicing) for an agreed percentage margin.
Suffolk, Hertfordshire, and Cambridgeshire Heads of Catering agreed that while many of their nominated meat suppliers were national or multinational companies, the same arrangement could be used to procure local meat from regional/local butchers.
Action taken
In 2005 EAFL started the ball rolling by asking the three LAs: “What are you buying and where are you buying from?” LAs generally have good data from their suppliers about the volumes of products supplied to schools over a period of time. At that time the percentage of meat bought locally was negligible.
The next step was to agree with all three school catering providers a list of specific frozen meat products (e.g. minced beef, diced beef, sausages, minced pork) that would be easy for regional butchers to supply. Two/three medium-large regional butchers who were not supplying LEAs, but had the capacity to do so, were identified. These were businesses with a turnover of £6/12million each. Given the volumes of individual products that LAs buy, it was unlikely that a small butcher would be able to meet the requirements.
A workshop was held to bring together a number of LEAs and regional butchers, so that they could air their concerns and needs. EAFL assisted the process for the LEAs, the butchers and the frozen distributors, ensuring that the butchers were clear on specifications, volumes of products required, and the detailed mechanics of the frozen distributors. The butchers provided samples and prices to the LEAs. Some LEAs did this through a formal tendering process.
In general, the local products were similar in price or marginally more expensive than the previous products, but overall the quality was much better. Quality proved the deciding factor and tasting sessions obviously assisted the process. EAFL witnessed one tasting session where the local product was brown and flavoursome compared with the imported product used previously, which was grey and flavourless.
A nominated supply chain was confirmed
* Suffolk Meat Traders (SMT), a wholesale butcher in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, buys beef animals from farmers for delivery to a local abattoir. The carcass is collected by SMT who then cuts it into primal joints. * Hundred River Foods is a catering butcher owned by SMT, based near Lowestoft in Suffolk. They collect primal joints from SMT and produce minced beef for Suffolk schools. They pack the mince, freeze it and deliver it by pallet to 3663 at Stowmarket in Suffolk. HRF invoices 3663, they in turn, pay Hundred River Foods direct. * When a Suffolk school catering manager needs minced beef he/she orders it from 3663, using the Suffolk Schools order form. 3663 supplies the frozen minced beef to the school and invoice Suffolk County Council for that meat as part of their consolidated invoice. Consequently, when 3663 identify that stocks of minced beef are running low they order more from directly from SMT’s catering butcher.The new system has resulted in a better quality product. Another advantage of using a local supplier is that it enables the LEA to specify a product to meet its own needs.
When the project began, the three authorities were starting at a very low baseline for sourcing local. Now, through the use of the nominated supplier route, this has increased to 10%. It has also enabled EAFL to work with these authorities in sourcing local for other products, in particular for vegetables.
Catering managers have been able to use ‘sourcing local’ as a marketing tool to parents, through their menus.
The nominated route is cost efficient for the producer because the margin charged by the frozen distributor is reasonable compared to, say, the cost to the butcher of running his own deliveries to schools, especially in areas with a high proportion of schools in rural locations with small drop-offs.
There are environmental benefits too. By using the nominated supply route already in place with Brakes, 3663, & Hopwells, EAFL could accommodate local SMEs who previously would not have taken on a school meals contract because of the high costs/problems around frequency of deliveries and the geography.
Another key benefit for the LEA caterers is that they are able to promote and market their use of local meat on the menus circulated to parents. This has addressed the ‘turkey twizzler’ perception of school meals, maintained or increased take-up and in turn helped the financial viability of their school meals service.
The challenges
The new butchers were used to dealing in fresh meat and had to find ways to supply it frozen. The LAs were used to buying products like sausages individually quick frozen (IQF), that is, the sausages are not frozen to each other. This can be achieved fairly easily by laying the sausages out on a tray before blast-freezing them.
Producing frozen minced meat is even more challenging because schools prefer this to be ‘free-flow’, which means that the individual grains of meat are separate from each other. The large manufacturers use equipment such as spiral freezers, which can cost upwards of £50,000. Regional butchers have managed to achieve a satisfactory result by more low-tech means, but this took some experimenting to develop.
Similarly butchers had to adapt recipes for beef burgers, specification for sausages or the fat content of minced beef, to meet LEA requirements for the new school food standards. However, butchers are accustomed to doing this and in general this it was not too problematic.
Poultry has been surprisingly difficult to source locally. Although East Anglia is one of the country’s main chicken-producing areas, the processing companies seem to divide into the very large companies (who in general find the demand from an LEA too small to be of interest) and the very small companies (who produce high-quality chicken but at too high a price, and lack the processing capacity to cut and freeze the portions that LEAs require).
Another challenge has been to clarify the source of 100% of the meat in some products. For example, the butcher who produces sausages for the LEAs buys in pork ‘trim’ from a major pig processor nearby. About 80% of the pigs destined for that processor are local pigs, but EAFL has been unable to persuade the processor to separate the local trim from that taken from pigs from further afield. Trim is a by-product of relatively little value to the processor.
Learning experience
It took longer than expected. In theory it looked simple but in practice it was more involved than had been anticipated. Engaging in earnest with all the parties involved, and sourcing in this way took around two years. There are practicality issues, especially around product development, and this is on-going. Building relationships and trust in the local agenda has also taken time.
Contact informtion
Tully Wakeman
East Anglia Food Link
Email: tully@eafl.org
Tel: 01508 536666
