A YES! We take great pride in the fact that our chefs cook everything on site from scratch, including our base sauces. We use fresh ingredients, fruit, vegetables, meat, and dairy products and these are delivered directly into each school.

A YES! We now offer the option of ordering between 1 and 5 meals per week on any day you choose.

A School governors advise the caterers if Halal is required as a provision in their school. There is no specific guidance on Halal food or any dietary restrictions relating to religion. Individual schools may choose to provide Halal food, especially in schools with a high proportion of Muslim pupils. There should always be an alternative option on each day.

A YES, as we cook to order per week. If your child no longer requires a meal, where possible, please inform us on the Thursday at 9.00am the WEEK BEFORE you want to cancel the meal.

A YES, all you need to do is click on Meal Manager, found at the top of our website. You need to register your child if you have not already done so, to choose their meals, or log back in using your email address and password you chose when you registered. Please ensure you Confirm your order otherwise we will not receive your meal choices.

A YES, We now have a late order system allowing you to order a meal before 9:00am that day

A Fresh Start offer a packed lunch on school trip days. The packed lunch is a set meal that includes a ham or cheese sandwich, crudites, a piece of fruit, and a cookie or a piece of cake. We do not provide a drink so please be aware you will need to supply this. You are able to select, within the preferences, if you would like to have a packed lunch in place of the booked meal on Meal Manager. Please be aware: If you advise Fresh Start that you would like a packed lunch on school trip days we will only provide this on the days that you have ordered a meal with us. If you have not ordered a meal with Fresh Start you will be responsible for providing your own packed lunch for the school trip. Fresh Start automatically remove the meal choice for you and swap this for your chosen packed lunch preference. There may be occasion when Fresh Start is unable to provide a packed lunch, for example, on Monday’s and on days when the children will be leaving very early, or if the meals are hot boxed from another kitchen and there is no refrigeration facility onsite. You will be made aware of this before the trip takes place to advise you this is the case. You are able to change your preferences within your home page but please be aware any changes made for school trips must take place before 9am Thursday the week before the trip is to take place.

A The school should let us know of any school trips that will affect your child’s lunches. Once we have been informed we run a report and check who has chosen to have a packed lunch in place of the hot meal originally booked. If you have chosen not to have a packed lunch we will refund you for the cost of your meal. We will endeavour to refund you for the meal as soon as possible but will ensure this is done before the end of the term the trip has taken place. We do not refund before a trip in case of cancellation.

A YES, we use a safe and secure system with SagePay integrated within Meal Manager.

A We would encourage you to pay via our Meal Manager as this ensures you are in control of the booking. Our system is safe and secure and no card details are stored or kept within Meal Manager. If you are not able to pay online you would need to contact us on [email protected].

A If we have been given the correct amount of notice (this is by 9am of the Thursday the week BEFORE your child will be absent from school) to cancel the meal then yes we can refund you for your child’s absence. If we aren’t informed of an absence within the correct notice period then we will not be able to refund you for the meal. The reason for this is that we have to order our fresh ingredients and meat the week before and we do this according to our numbers on Meal Manager. If we don’t have notice, we will also cook for your child on the day they are absent. This leads to the waste of food and we also have the cost of the ingredients. Please bear in mind that none of our meals are frozen and therefore this isn’t just a case of taking one less meal out of the freezer on the day. The perishable ingredients must be thrown away if we over order and do not use them up.

A In Account Home you can see the heading ‘next booked meal. Underneath this heading is the date your child’s next meal is due. Please be aware the heading ‘term ‘does not refer to the start date of your meals, this only refers to the dates of the term your plan is in.

A  It may be that you haven’t confirmed your meal choices or that you have missed a day or week when ordering. The easiest way to make sure this does not happen is to check your confirmation email, this will tell you how many meals you have booked and when you have booked them. You can also look in your account home and double check that you have all the meals booked that you require.

A We ask you to order by 9am the Thursday of the week before as there is quite a lot of background administration involved in ordering the fresh meat and fresh ingredients for your child’s meals. We must have a cut-off date to procure the meat and fresh ingredients in advance. The numbers that we take off Meal Manager are what we use to order the correct amount of ingredients. We cannot over order as this leads to waste. We, therefore, only order enough ingredients to cover those that have placed their meal choices by the set deadline date. If you order after the deadline date your child will not be down to have a meal and therefore you should provide a packed lunch until their meal choices begin.