Our catering team gain top award | Our News

Our school catering team is celebrating after gaining a top award for adding plant-based ingredients to menus – that pupils really like.

 

Our teams are based at around 40 schools across the London Boroughs of Barking and Dagenham and Brent (in Wembley) as well as in Epping, Essex.

 

They work hard at making tasty and nutritious meals for more than 17,200 pupils every school day and have been looking at ways to reduce their environmental impact, make menus healthier and ensure their dishes stay appealing to children.

 

Now they have been served up a prestigious bronze award after sending their 2026/27 school menus to ProVeg – an international non-profit organisation dedicated to making plant-based sustainable ingredients more available to help the environment.

 

Using plant-based ingredients helps cut down on meat production – which is more carbon intensive than plant-based ingredients - and it can act as a real tasty alternative in many recipes.

 

For example, the BD Group teams have shown how their showstopping and much-loved crispy margherita pizzas remain just as tasty with green lentils blended into the sauce, adding extra fibre and plant goodness to this favoured dish.

 

Other recipes added to the menus include vegetable sweet and sour noodles stir fry and Spanish bean & vegetable stew.

 

Alex Jemison, School Plates Awards Coordinator at ProVeg UK, said of our food team’s achievements: “We’re thrilled to acknowledge the great work BD Group is doing to create healthier and more sustainable menus. BD Group is not only improving children's health, but they are also protecting their future.”

 

Sarah Ryan, BD Group’s Interim Chief Executive, added: “Well done to our school catering teams. They are so proactive and work really hard to make tasty and nutritious meals for children.

 

“Using innovative ways to include health plant-based ingredients in the tens of thousands of meals we make every week is a great way to help the environment and help keep children healthy.”

 

For more details on ProVeg go online at https://proveg.org/uk