Why JJ is the Perfect Partner for School Caterers
Updated: 22 February, 2024
Schools need food suppliers that can provide healthy, nutritious, and affordable food options for their students – as well as being easy and reliable to work with. Here’s how JJ Foodservice can help.
Food quality and safety
Schools want to ensure that the food they serve to students is fresh, safe to eat, and meets health and safety standards. At JJ our dedicated Quality Assurance team makes sure all our products meet the highest food quality and safety standards.
Nutritional value
Schools need foodservice suppliers that can provide food that is rich in essential nutrients and can contribute to a healthy diet for students.
At JJ, we sell a wide range of ‘school-compliant’ products from yogurts and snacks to fresh fruits and vegetables, helping you to build the perfect, balanced menu for your students.
Affordability
Schools have limited budgets, so it’s important to offer competitive prices and good value for money. Our buyer’s negotiate great long-term prices on large volumes of goods, helping school caterers to plan delicious, affordable meals all year round.
Plus, our investment in technology to streamline processes to keep costs down, helps us to keep passing on great savings to customers.
Variety
An increasingly diverse student demographic means that school foodservice suppliers must offer a wide range of options to meet students’ needs. So, whether it’s halal, vegan, vegetarian or gluten-free – JJ has options to cover all tastes and diets, supported by clearly labelled ingredients.
Sustainability
It’s critical to work with suppliers that follow sustainable practices and source ingredients from environmentally responsible sources. That’s why we are proud to share that we have invested in installing solar panels across all branches.
Solar energy is sustainable, renewable and can help to cut electricity bills, which will help us to continue offering affordable prices.
On the IT side, we are on a journey to migrate to cloud-based services using Microsoft Azure, which has committed to being carbon negative by 2030.
By shifting to cloud-computing, the business will rely less on hardware and physical machines. The result is a reduction in energy use and environmental impact. We have a fast-growing biodegradable packaging range and are dramatically reducing plastics.
Convenience
Using suppliers with fully digitalised ordering can help school caterers to increase ordering efficiency and improve data accuracy. The result is faster processing times and improved product availability.
We use Cypad with EDI to provide real-time visibility into our inventory levels, allowing us to better manage supply chains and ensure that products are always in stock.
Reliability
Schools depend on their food suppliers to provide a consistent and reliable service, so it’s important to look for wholesalers that have a proven track record of meeting their commitments. At JJ Foodservice, we care about our promise to deliver.
That’s why we are multi-award winners in our industry for innovation and service, and we’re proud to have thousands of five-star Google reviews.
Social value
We are extremely passionate about supporting the local community – we regularly donate goods to schools, charities, and homeless shelters.
JJ are official partners with FareShare to ensure that any surplus stock is given to the local communities that need it. We also regularly volunteer with charities, so when you partner with us, you are partnering with a business that adds value to the local community.
Inclusive
As an inclusive employer – we are happy to take on traineeships and apprenticeships for local residence and many of our senior managers have started out as apprentices!
We are also well placed to offer meaningful work experience – whether you wish to learn how a food warehouse operates or are interested in a customer service role, we can help.
As part of our commitment to promote equity and fairness we welcome people of all backgrounds and circumstances to work at JJ Foodservice, including ex-offenders and those who may traditionally face challenges with competing in the labour market.
To support this goal, our HR and Comms teams are available to mentor young people to develop their CV, careers guidance or carry out mock interviews.
If you would like to speak with our team about how JJ Foodservice can support your school menu, please contact comms@jjfoodservice.com