“They’ve helped make the dining area ‘a place to be seen’.”
Cheshire County Council is setting the standard in school catering facilities. One of the UK’s brightest and most remarkable catering operations is at Macclesfield High School, itself newly opened in September 2007.
The design of the all-new operation at Macclesfield will open most school caterers’ eyes. Serving lunch for up to 800 pupils in a stunningly modern food-court style, it also prepares food – from sandwiches to plated meals – for in-school daytime and evening functions.
The centrepiece of the room is a 6-metre long servery counter from Moffat Catering Equipment, built especially with flexibility in mind. Sweeping grandly around an open-plan kitchen, the counter surface is divided into Sandwich, Hot Main, Hot Dessert and Cold Dessert sections, followed by a Pay Station.
In a different queuing station – but as part of the main counter – is a Pizza and Panini section. A separate island counter serves pasta and baked potatoes.
And the counters certainly look the part. “We wanted a modern facility that would compete with anything equivalent in Macclesfield town centre,” says Mary Butler, Area Manager for CBS, Cheshire’s county schools catering operation. “It also had be flexible enough to cope if the school’s needs changed – both in meeting new legislation and when the demands of staff, pupils and parents changed. We can also accommodate special needs pupils from neighbouring schools.”
Mary Butler says the counters are designed to cope with very busy functions such as school parties, conferences or outdoor events, when large groups might suddenly descend on the dining area at once. At those times a lot of food and drink needs to be served in a very short space of time, and efficient design was vital.
Moffat was a natural choice for building the counters at Macclesfield High School, she says. CBS sketched out an idea for a brighter, more elegant design than is found in most school catering facilities, and wanted a manufacturer with a flair for building stylish custom catering equipment.
“We knew Moffat has a reputation for quality work at the cutting edge,” she says. “They had already worked extensively with our chosen main contractor, Caterware, and could add expertise and individuality.”
The new Moffat counters have proved excellent, she concludes. “Quite apart from being easy for the staff to work with, they are attractive, brighter and modern. They’ve helped us compete with high street catering outlets, and have made the dining area become ‘a place to be seen’.”
E & R Moffat is one of the UK’s leading manufacturers of quality foodservice equipment, designing and manufacturing in-house. Based in Bonnybridge, Scotland, the company manufactures standard and bespoke servery, regeneration and storage equipment with a full nationwide after-sales engineering team. E & R Moffat is accredited to ISO 9001:2000 and many of the products have gas approvals and are EMC tested. For more information on E & R Moffat visit the website on www.ermoffat.co.uk.