Wetherby High School
Wetherby High School, part of the Leeds Learning Network, is a specialist technology college catering for children aged 11 to 18. Unlike many schools, Wetherby has introduced an unusual approach to dining for its pupils by employing a Catering Manager formally trained as a Chef and with a vision to use only locally sourced fresh ingredients. Wetherby believes that food is core to the performance of its pupils and aims to provide only the best.
Using fresh locally produced food is a utopia position, but it brings with it the challenge of providing meals within a very tight cost parameter and also satisfying the forthcoming UK Government standards for Food Nutrition. This is without doubt a challenging task and one that requires not only culinary skill, but also the tools to support the Catering Manager in the day to day kitchen management.
After researching and looking at numerous products to assist this task, Wetherby chose to introduce an EPoS system, supported by fingerprint recognition technology, that would give good retail control and help to manage revenues, but it was clear that a more advanced food cost and nutrition package was needed to supplement this. Again, after much research, Wetherby found StarChef.NET on the web and invited Star Logic to visit the school to demonstrate how it could provide the missing levels of management information.
Wetherby quickly realised that the StarChef.NET system was more than capable of meeting the needs of the business and could see that it offered all the functions that could be needed. Ingredient management, powerful recipe costing, advanced schools nutritional calculations and menu / menu cycle engineering.
Wetherby selected StarChef.NET above the other systems available because of the rich functionality, ease of use and also because they recognised the Star Logic team to be very professional and transparent in their approach. Not least in the decision was the realisation that the StarChef.NET system could be implemented at very low cost and had the ability to scale upwards in future if needed, including the option to roll out to other schools locally.
Key to the success of StarChef.NET at Wetherby was the ease by which it could be introduced into the business. Configured by the Star Logic team ahead of implementation, based on a clear understanding of the business requirements, the system was delivered ready to use. As a web based solution, there were no lengthy software installations, network interruptions or costly hardware requirements, merely a requirement to have an internet connection. Once provided with the user name and password, the Catering Manager was able to get to work straight away. Star Logic provided two additional levels of support to aid the start up. Firstly, the ingredient list was provided to Star Logic on an excel spreadsheet and loaded onto the system. This saved considerable time for the Catering Manager leaving him free to concentrate on the more important recipe building. The team at Star Logic considered the list provided and drawing on years of experience made amendments in conjunction with the Catering Manager to ensure it was as user friendly as possible. The second part of the implementation was a one to one training session, using a member of the Star Logic team with a catering background to be sure trainer and delegate could relate easily to each other.
The final part of the jigsaw was to look at providing sales information to StarChef.NET from the EPoS solution. The approach of Star Logic was to remove as far as possible and need for the customer to manage this process and therefore arranged to meet with and discuss the technical feasibility of the link. This done, Star Logic was able to provide costs for the integration and schedule the work to be completed once approved.
The result of the project is a robust system for producing recipe and menu cost whilst being able to carry out the necessary nutritional calculations. The system was implemented, on time and on budget and is now well under way to providing an adequate level of information on which to base daily buying and menu planning decisions.
