Wilson Vale has extended three of its independent school catering contracts: Hymers College in Kingston upon Hull (pictured), and Hill House School in Doncaster for a further two years, and Kingsmead School in the Wirral for a further three years.
The independent caterer originally gained the catering contract with Hymers College in 2005. Since then, levels of service and the food have won praise from pupils, parents, staff and visitors to the school alike.
Kate Walker, director of finance for Hymers College, said, “Wilson Vale has been an important part of school life at Hymers College since 2005 and the services they provide are valued highly by our children, parents and staff. Over recent years, we needed to evolve the way catering works within the school. Wilson Vale’s management team showed flexibility, commitment and commercial focus in how they embraced this period of evolution and as a result we have recently extended our partnership until 2018.
“We enjoy a very collaborative approach to developing the catering services and have recently embarked on an exciting events project which we are sure will add value to both Hymers College and Wilson Vale and will further strengthen an already well-established partnership”.
Andrew Wilson, co-founder and managing director of Wilson Vale, said: ”A culture of nurturing, mentoring and training has been fundamentally ingrained into the business since the very outset so it is very rewarding for us to see that our clients appreciate our unique approach.
“To retain business on the strength of existing performance is a vote of confidence in our quality standards, our relationship with our client and in our ability to deliver our promises throughout the life of our contracts.”
Wilson Vale has also extended its contract with Hill House School, an independent day school in Doncaster, for another two years. A team of thirteen Wilson Vale staff manages catering for 60 staff and 556 pupils, ranging in age from three to eighteen, since the contract started in 2011.
Karen Kidney, bursar at Hill House, said, “At Hill House School we are constantly looking to enhance the overall educational experience by investing in improved facilities and experienced teaching staff and by adding value in areas outside of the classroom. The strong working partnership we have with Wilson Vale has enabled significant improvements to be made to the catering service.
“I work closely with Matt Hewitt, Wilson Vale’s chef manager, and his team on a daily basis, developing a constantly changing menu, holding regular theme days and tasting sessions, ensuring we retain the children’s enthusiasm.
“Our senior management team considers the lunch experience of the children and staff to be pivotal to the school day; not only is it a time to refuel with a varied, tasty and nutritious menu, it’s also an opportunity to relax and spend quality time with friends.”
Hill House School is currently extending and refurbishing the dining room to enhance the lunch experience further and is working with the catering team to deliver what promises to be an even better service.
Mark Gibbons, headmaster at Kingsmead School, said,” Wilson Vale are phenomenal. Their standards and quality of food are consistently outstanding and the overall support from the whole team always goes beyond the extra mile. I so appreciate what they have done and how efficiently they have transformed this area of our school. I could not recommend them more highly.”