About us

Local Kitchen is your local school meals service. We provide fresh, healthy and tasty school meals to schools across Wigan.

We care about what your children eat and, with years of experience, we understand what children need and what they enjoy. We are committed to promoting healthier lifestyles, encouraging children to try new foods and providing a high quality, eco-friendly, value for money service.

How do we do this?

We work closely with schools to create menus that are varied, nutritional, affordable and packed full of fresh, local food.

Local Kitchen is just that - we source 95% of our food locally, supporting the local producers right here on our doorstep and keeping food miles to a minimum.

We’re committed to sustainability, so you can trust us to do the right thing when it comes to the environment. Whether it’s swapping to compostable packaging, banning all plastic bottles or reducing food waste, we go beyond school meals to make sure everything we do has a positive impact on the planet.

All of this is helping schools to meet their target of becoming plastic free by 2022.

Smart and safe dining

We also guarantee a modern, efficient school meals service thanks to the Evolve smart online ordering system.

This allows children to order their food, identifies any allergens and dietary requirements and means parents can top up digitally rather than dealing with cash. It also means we only prepare what’s ordered, reducing food waste and speeding up service.

Putting income back into the local community

Local Kitchen is a not-for-profit organisation. Unlike our private sector competitors, we do not make money for shareholders or owners. Any extra income is returned to the local authority and reinvested into service delivery.

Through this, we are helping to improve the borough and invest in our communities as part of the Wigan Deal

We know school meals

The team here at Local Kitchen is highly experienced in delivering tasty, nutritious meals to schools across Wigan on a daily basis. Everyone achieves industry NVQs and are continually trained to make sure our services are the best they can be.

We work closely with Wigan Council’s Environmental Health Team and will make sure your school gains the highest food hygiene rating. We also carry out regular Quality Assessment Audits and External Audits of our service, so you can be sure that we will deliver a quality service that meets - and often exceeds - your needs.

Meet the Local Kitchen team

  • Service Manager - Andrea Yates
  • Business Manager - Simon Byrom
  • Operations Manaer - Anthony Hobson
  • Area Managers - Maria Hawkins, Anouska Wash
  • Area Supervisors - Nicola Wrenshaw, Paul Ollerton, Alison Battersby, Serena Carter and Jamie-Lea Lyon
  • Food and Procurement Manager - Gill Cain
  • Business Improvement Officer - Andrea McFadden
  • Catering Improvement Officers - Vanessa Hilton, Dawn Davies
  • Business Support Manager - Leah Sargeant
  • Business Support Officers - Mary Addo, Luke Lever, Patrick Chambers, Stacy Gregory.

© Wigan Council