A NEW provider will soon be serving up freshly cooked meals made from locally sourced quality ingredients to Gloucestershire’s schoolchildren.

Gloucestershire County Council awarded a new contract to Caterlink to provide healthy school meals to primary and special schools.

The agreement, made on Tuesday, will begin in July 2015 and run until July 2020.

The council has been working on behalf of schools to negotiate with providers of school dinners over the past few months to get the best deal for children.

The tendering process was focussed on school menus providing as fresh and wholesome foods as possible.

From September 2015, Caterlink will start serving meals accredited to the Food for Life Gold Standard. Around 185 primary schools will take part, which means on average 17,000 school meals will be served every day.

Caterlink already provides school meals in a number of local authorities. The company was chosen by the council because of its commitment to making meals from the best quality fresh ingredients and because food is sourced from local suppliers.

The successful online payment scheme ‘ParentPay’, introduced in 2009 will continue to be used. The system enables parents to make online payment for school meals.

The school meals contract is entirely funded through parents paying for meals and from free school meal funding. The current cost of a school meal is £2.20.