INDEPENDENT
CATERERS
WORKING WITH
INDEPENDENT
SCHOOLS
Just Makes Sense
REPRESENTING
You
Cleverchefs live and breathe great food, it's just what we do.
It has to be seasonal and sourced responsibly from the UK where possible. School food should not be a process, it should be a talking point. We pride ourselves on creating a reputation of excellence to align with your academic values.
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Food can enhance minds and souls with a carefully balanced menu for health and nutrition, whilst also creating moments of food joy to leave lasting impressions on your students memories for years to come.
We do things a little different to other caterers when it comes to food in our independent schools.
Nimble enough to source food like a Michelin star restaurant, you won't see big articulated trucks turning up at our sites.
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We work with small producers across the UK to source our supplies which is what our independent kitchens love about us.
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Local butchers, fish mongers & fresh vegetable suppliers work with us on producing our seasonal menus, keeping us up to date on what is being grown locally and plentiful.
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BALANCED but
Beautiful
Carefully developed menus bespoke to each school focusing on nutritional value but without compromising on taste or presentation. Students eat with their eyes and it has to look good. There is more to our chefs than cooking.
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One of our rules is that all chefs leading our kitchens have to attend and pass our 40 hour nutrition course over a 6 week period led by our head of nutrition. Because we want to empower our chefs to have a hand in creating the bespoke food offers onsite we need them to understand every aspect of food balancing.
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With our development chefs team we have created a wide range of concepts that give our young customers their vitamins and minerals whilst tasting great, like our root bakes range. Sticky toffee parsnip cake is a particular favourite. By roasting the parsnips to bring out the natural sweetness we have been able to considerably reduce the sugar in the cakes.
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Eating vegetables in season is also key to capturing the full benefit of it, we also look at the way we cook our food, a lot of goodness is lost through the cooking process, so we use clever techniques to protect the loss of goodness like salt-baking beetroots and potatoes or using vacuum packing sous vide style cooking to keep that goodness and flavour locked in all the way to the plate.
FOOD that
Packs a Punch
Now we do have some things we refuse to compromise on when it comes to our food.
All of our meat has to be from the UK and have at least a red tractor accreditation. All eggs have to be free-range and any veg has to be in season, makes sense, right?
Well they are our food musts but that is only the beginning.
Chefs love to work for us because they can create and that's what makes a chef tick; we should know as all of the senior team are chefs in their own right.
CASE STUDY
St John's College
Cardiff
We are honoured to have established a partnership with such an esteemed independent school in Wales.
Seeking to elevate their culinary offerings for students ranging from 3 to 18 years of age, we embarked on a journey to enhance their catering services.
To discover the details of how we elevated the catering experience and fostered a reliable partnership with this distinguished, award-winning school, please click the play button below.
THE ELITE
Chefs Hub
Our TECH team is the training academy for Cleverchefs, focusing on bringing new talent through the business and giving them the skills they need to become the future Cleverchefs.
Our TECH team is made up of the development team, hand-picked chef leaders from across the business and apprentice chefs. The hospitality industry has slowly de-skilled its workforce over the last decade with the serious influx of high street restaurant chains that have food bought in from centrally produced kitchens.
We are committed to bringing back that cook-from-scratch mentality. Our kitchen teams will all know the classics of sauces, potatoes, vegetable preparation, butchery & baking, from knowing the classics is where our chefs can innovate and step up our food to the next level. Our apprentice TECH program is as exciting as it gets for a young chef.
Cleverchefs is focused on food and that really rubs off on them from day one.
HOSPITAlITY
Above the Norm
Did you know Cleverchefs started its life as a premium event caterer winning over 15 industry-recognised awards for its work?
Still going strong today and one of the UK's biggest outside caterers, 2021 saw that side of the business forming its own brand identity as
EPIC CATERERS.
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Working alongside its Cleverchefs colleagues, the two brands are aligned in their values. Our Epic team carefully oversee any hospitality or events that our teams do to make sure we stay ahead of the curve.
So the teams on-site will have a serious amount of talent guiding them to produce exceptional hospitality & service.
Get in Touch
BRISTOL HQ
Cleverchefs | The Powerhouse | Great Park Rd. | Bradley Stoke | Bristol BS32 4RU | 0117 287 204
CARDIFF HQ
Cleverchefs | 10 Ty-Nant Court | Morganstown | Cardiff | CF15 8LW | 029 2280 2676