LACA Exhibition 2015

Last week we headed off to exhibit at the LACA Main Event in Birmingham. As well as having a stand in the main exhibition, we also took one of our Food Cubes along. We stationed the Cube outside the venue, and lots of visitors followed our special treasure maps to hunt it down for a look around!

Our lucky dip treasure chest located in the Food Cube proved to be very popular, with prizes including bags of sweets, PKL goodie bags, travel mugs, Parker pens and Kindles. Three lucky people won Kindles this year – congratulations to Phillipa, Tracey and Rachel.



As always, we had a great time meeting new people and catching up with old friends, and had some great conversations about how our KitchenPods, Food Cubes and temporary kitchens can help different schools overcome a variety of catering issues.

Recent School Projects

We've installed several temporary and permanent catering facilities in schools in the last few weeks, with many schools preparing for September already. Here's a selection of photos from some school projects we've recently completed.

Cavendish Primary School in Manchester has had a temporary kitchen and dining facility installed for 18 months while their old facilities undergo a refurbishment. The large kitchen facility has areas for preparation, production, dry and cold storage, and dishwashing, as well as a dining hall, toilets and staff room.



We've also recently installed a Food Cube at Fairfield High School for Girls in Manchester. The school wanted to offer a catering facility with a more contemporary high street feel to particularly appeal to older pupils. The Cube has helped reduce queue times in the main dining hall and has taken pressure off the catering staff. It has also proven to be popular with users of the nearby sports hall, and the Cube is generating additional profits outside of normal school hours by catering for people using the sports facilities.



The same contract caterer also ordered another identical Food Cube for Tewkesbury School (above). They have been so pleased with the popularity and success of these first two Cubes, that they've just placed an order for a third!

Introducing the "Moon Cube"

We are hugely proud to announce that we have recently won the contract to install the first catering outlet on the Moon, in response to an anticipated increase in space travel in the next decade. Provisionally called the “Moon Cube”, it will be used to provide a range of drinks and light snacks to both astronauts and space tourists, as well as providing a stop-off point to break up longer journeys. While it is still in the very early design stages, it is anticipated that it will be ready to install within the next seven years, and there are also longer term plans in place to create a more comprehensive service station type facility if it is a success.

The Moon Cube is being designed with custom equipment to enable it to prepare and serve specialist space food. Due to the unique environment of space, food must be safe to store for relatively long periods of time, as well as being nutritionally balanced and easy to consume in low gravity environments, so this has an impact on the catering equipment required. Later this year, we will begin working alongside a number of suppliers to create new equipment designs suitable for the project, following scheduled discussions with a number of experts to identify required features and potential challenges.

Initial concept drawing for the PKL Moon Cube

The Moon Cube will feature a long-range beacon to alert passing space traffic to its presence, and transmit information on food and drink availability. An integrated computer system will also be used to communicate stock level information to the client on Earth, enabling efficient stock planning. In addition to these features, the project will also require us to implement systems for regulating the unit’s temperature, as well as air filtration and waste removal systems similar to those used in existing space vehicles.

Our highly skilled design team will be working to overcome a number of unique, site-specific challenges such as low gravity and pasteurised terrain, while it is anticipated that solar panels and generators will be used to overcome a lack of services on site. Our expert transport team are experienced in delivering to challenging locations, but this will be their greatest challenge yet. Throughout the design process, we will also be liaising with a number of agencies to discuss transport options, and as with all our projects, detailed delivery and lift plans will be created in advance. 

This project is a fantastic opportunity for PKL, and follows 25 years of success in supplying catering infrastructure to prestigious projects around the world. We have started the recruitment process for a number of specialist staff to take a lead on the project, including aerospace engineers and physicists, while our existing staff will be able to provide a wealth of experience and knowledge of catering design and installation. Although the deployment is several years away, this project represents the chance to build on our strong history of catering innovation and is the start of a new era for PKL.

For more information on our Earth-based Food Cubes, visit our website.

A-Z of PKL's 2014: Part 3

Here's the third and final part of my A-Z review of the year. This section covers letters R-Z and includes cows, football, jumpers and a few kitchens. Enjoy!

R is for race week, and our psychic office bovine CowCow. As we are based just up the road from Cheltenham Racecourse, we can’t help but take an interest in the Cheltenham Festival each March. This year, CowCow used an elaborate spinner system to make his race predictions, which were shared on the blog and the PKL Twitter account. He successfully picked a number of winners this year, improving greatly on last year’s rather shaky performance.

S is for the School Food Plan and the Small Schools Taskforce. It’s been an incredibly busy year for schools, with huge changes to school food due to new standards set out in the School Food Plan. We’ve supplied a whole range of temporary and permanent kitchen solutions to schools this year to enable them to update their kitchens to cope with the changes. As a member of the Small Schools Taskforce, I’ve also spent time offering kitchen advice and recommendations to small and rural schools, who have been faced by a different set of challenges.

CowCow making his race predictions and AFC Trident in their PKL shirts

T is for AFC Trident, the local football team that we are sponsoring this season. They’re having a great season so far (undoubtedly due to their fantastic PKL shirts!), and you can read more and follow their progress on the PKL blog, and in our monthly newsletters. T is also for Tennants Auctioneers, where we installed a temporary kitchen to keep their popular on-site restaurant running during a three-week kitchen refurbishment. For more details of this project, you can read the Tennants Auctioneers case study.

U is for Universal Infant Free School Meals (UIFSM). Introduced in September, this government initiative to provide free school meals to all pupils in Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 has impacted on primary schools across the country. We’ve supported a number of schools to prepare their kitchen facilities for this, through the sale and hire of permanent KitchenPods to replace or extend existing school kitchens or provide a new facility for schools with no kitchen. We have also hired temporary kitchens to schools whose kitchens weren’t going to be ready on time.

Temporary kitchen at Tennants Auctioneers and VIP kitchen at Blended Festival in Dubai

V is for VIP catering. We’ve supplied kitchens and catering equipment for VIP catering at various events throughout the year, including music festivals, concerts and awards shows. V is also for vehicles. Our vehicles have completed a number of tricky deliveries this year including negotiating narrow gates using forklifts at St Pauls School, and craning a temporary kitchen unit over an entire building at Burton College.

W is for our new strategic partnership with Well Dressed Tables, which was set up in August. It gives our customers access to Well Dressed Tables’ stock of crockery, cutlery and glassware to hire, providing a simple, one-stop solution. W is also for work experience. In April, local school pupil Beatrice joined the PKL marketing team for a week of work experience. From designing email newsletters to clearing out the marketing cupboard, she got stuck in to all the tasks we threw at her! You can read Beatrice’s work experience diary here.

X is for Xmas! Although our offices will be closed over the Christmas period, members of staff will be on call to help any businesses or organisations who need emergency kitchen facilities, and we already have a number of temporary units set up and ready to deploy at short notice. X is also for Xmas jumpers. We took part in National Christmas Jumper Day last Friday and raised money for homeless charity Crisis – embarrassing photo below.

Craning over a building at Burton College and National Christmas Jumper Day

Y is for the Yorkshire Purchasing Organisation (YPO). As approved suppliers on the framework, we exhibited at The Big YPO Cleaning, Catering and FM Show in Nottingham in July. The exhibition featured 65 YPO suppliers and was attended by purchasing representatives from various public sector organisations. Y is also for Y Pant School in Wales. We installed a Food Cube at the school in the summer holidays, which is the third Cube we’ve supplied to that particular local authority.

Z is for zzz... Our Technical Support line will continue to be open 24 hours a day over the Christmas period to support existing kitchens we have out on hire, so even if a client has a kitchen problem at 2am on Christmas Day, a human will be there to answer the phone and help or dispatch an engineer – the rest of the country might be asleep, but if you have a kitchen emergency, you can always get hold of us.

That's the end of my review of 2014. There have of course been a number of other exciting projects and highlights throughout 2014, but I hope this brief review has given you an insight into the varying range of events and projects we've been involved in throughout the year.

Here's to 2015!

A-Z of PKL's 2014: Part 2

Here is Part 2 of my A-Z of this year's highlights at PKL. Part 2 covers letters J-Q, and this section of the alphabet includes a number of exciting events that we've taken part in this year. In this section, it's also clear that it's been a hugely eventful year for the education sector in particular, with new legislation and school initiatives having had a significant impact on that side of our business! If you missed it last week, make sure you catch up on Part 1: A-I here.

J is for Jamie’s Kitchen Garden Project. In May, we installed a Food Technology Kitchen at St Paul’s Primary School in London as part of this Jamie Oliver initiative to get children growing their own food and cooking in schools. It was positioned by the school’s vegetable garden and was designed to include cooking equipment as well as tables and chairs for the children to eat at once they had cooked their meals.

K is for KitchenPods, our permanent modular kitchens. In November, local MP Ed Miliband officially opened the brand new KitchenPod at Kirkby Avenue Primary School in Doncaster. This was a spacious new kitchen with brick slip finish to blend in with existing buildings on site.

Food Technology Kitchen installation at St Paul's Primary and KitchenPod at Kirkby Avenue Primary

L is for the LACA Exhibition which we attended in July. This year, we took along a portable kitchen and positioned it outside the main entrance of the venue for delegates to see in the flesh. Many people hadn’t seen inside a temporary kitchen before, and were surprised at the quality and spaciousness of the cooking environment. We always enjoy the LACA shows, and it was great to see so many familiar faces and meet new people too.

M is for PKL's Macmillan coffee morning. In September, we took part in the World’s Biggest Coffee Morning in aid of Macmillan Cancer Support. A huge cake sale in our staff canteen raised £175 for the cause. M is also for the Modular and Portable Building Association (MPBA), which PKL joined as a member in September. I also now sit on the committee as a member of the main MPBA Council.

Temporary kitchen at the LACA Exhibition and Macmillan coffee morning

N is for National School Meals Week. As part of National School Meals Week, we installed a pop-up school kitchen outside the House of Commons on Tuesday 4th November. The kitchen was used to serve sample school lunches to MPs, peers and the public to promote school food and show what modern school meals are really like!

O is for The One Show. Back in March, our KitchenPods were featured on The One Show as a potential solution for schools needing kitchen facilities to offer UIFSM from September. We also installed a Food Cube at the BBC studios, to be featured as an example of a solution for schools suffering lunchtime congestion. The Food Cube was then used by Mary Berry to cook pancakes live on the show!

Pop-up school kitchen outside parliament for NSMW and Food Cube on The One Show

P is for Passmores Academy, where we installed a large, walk-through Food Cube. The school, which is the setting for hit TV show Educating Essex, needed to expand its dining facilities to cope with increasing pupil intake. The Food Cube was positioned by an existing outdoor covered seating area, turning it into an additional space where pupils could purchase and eat food. P is also for poetry. When it comes to poetry, we’ve found that no topic is more inspiring than catering equipment. Read our National Poetry Day rhyme, “Dance of the Catering Equipment”.

Q is for queueing. With increasing numbers of 16-18 year olds staying in education and the School Food Plan leading to increased school meal take-up, many school canteens have been experiencing growing congestion this year. Our Food Cubes have continued to be a popular solution for schools across the country, drastically reducing lunch queue times by easing the pressure on the main canteen and offering a quick “grab and go” service.

That's it for Part 2. Stop by the blog again next week for the final installment of the A-Z of PKL's 2014.

A-Z of PKL's 2014: Part 1

It's been a great year at PKL, with lots of exciting new projects, partnerships and events. As 2014 draws to a close, I've put together an A-Z review of the year to pick out my highlights. I'll publish a blog post each week from now until the Christmas break to take you through my summary of PKL's 2014. Here's Part 1: A-I.

A is for Ashridge Business Centre. This business centre located in a stunning Grade I listed country house was the site of a 12-week temporary kitchen hire during the summer. The PKL temporary kitchen facility was capable of producing 500 meals per sitting for the centre's staff, visitors and functions while the centre underwent a refurbishment. For more details on this project, read our Ashridge case study.

B is for a fantastic KitchenPod installed at Bentley High Street Primary School in time for the introduction of UIFSM in September. B is also for our brilliant new brochures! These brochures were the result of months of hard work, so when the first copies were printed in May, it was a real cause for celebration. We now have separate brochures for Temporary Kitchens, Catering Equipment, Events, Permanent Solutions and Transworld.

C is for the Children's Food Trust, who we continue to support. With the introduction of UIFSM in September, it's been a busy year for school projects. For example, the Children's Food Trust and LACA put West Berkshire Council in touch with us when three schools needed urgent kitchen solutions - read the West Berkshire schools case study for more details. C is also for customer feedback. We use a Net Promoter Score to measure customer feedback. In the analysis of NPS, a score of above zero is good and above 50 is excellent. I'm delighted to say that our NPS score so far this year is 70, which demonstrates a very high level of customer satisfaction.

Temporary kitchens at Ashridge Business Centre and Dubai Food Carnival

D is for our new partnership with Lowe Refrigeration in Dubai. The partnership has seen our units used at a number of exciting events in Dubai, with case studies including kitchens at Dubai Food Carnival, Blended Music Festival and the Dubai Rugby Sevens.

E is for event health and safety. It might not sound too exciting but there are some very important new health and safety changes being introduced in the event industry next year which will affect all our event clients. The new CDM regulations will mean tougher event safety standards, similar to those seen in the construction sector. Luckily we’ve already been supplying CDM compliant products and services to the event sector for over five years! You can read more in our event health and safety blog post.

Food Cube with attached dining room and walk-in Food Cube

F is for festivals! Our UK Events team supplied kitchens to a number of festivals again this year, for a mix of VIP, staff and public dining. We've also installed lots of Food Cubes at secondary schools across the country, including new bespoke designs such as a Food Cube with attached dining room, and a walk-in Food Cube with additional catering equipment. F is also for the Foodservice Consultants Society International (FCSI), of which I am now a member!

G is for the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games, where we supplied the kitchens and servery areas for the main athletes' dining facility, as well as additional casual dining facilities. We supply kitchen and dining facilities to a number of major international sporting events, but it's always extra special when it's one based in the UK. G is also for Gabon, where we supplied a kitchen facility to an oil exploration camp, via our Transworld international division.

Clyde enjoying a drink at Glasgow 2014 and the new Halfway House design

H is for our new Halfway House facility for golf clubs which was launched in August. This is a new member of our Food Cube family of products, and offers a modular food and drink servery with shop and toilets, to be located out on the golf course for players to use during their round. You can read more about it in our Halfway House blog post. H is also for the Hospital Caterers Association (HCA). As well as attending HCA meetings throughout the year, we hosted a meeting for the south west branch back in January.

I is for internal refurbishments! This year, we've undertaken various refurbishment works to our offices including a brand new reception area and board room, a major revamp in the canteen and fantastic new office chairs! Reception has had new paint and flooring, a new reception desk, the addition of a display case for all our awards(!) and a new wall-mounted screen. Elsewhere, the board room has had new paint, carpet, chairs, blinds and pictures, while the canteen has been repainted and had new flooring put down. All very smart.

That's it for Part 1. Keep an eye out for the A-Z Part 2 next week!

Kitchen Solutions for Ports and Dockyards

I’ve worked with a number of ports and dockyards during my time at PKL, helping provide catering infrastructure solutions for a range of different projects.

These are always interesting projects to work on as every job has different requirements and site layouts. As a result, we have created different kitchen options to use as a starting point to design a solution to suit each individual project.

With various options available for these sites in particular, I thought it might be useful to outline the main PKL solutions that are typically specified for ports and dockyards.

Dockyards are such large and complex sites that we have created a number of dockyard-friendly catering solutions over the years for our clients.

Here’s a quick overview of our top kitchen solutions for the sector:

Modular Kitchens and Dining Facilities

Where a cook and serve option is required, we offer three different sizes of portable kitchen, all with service hatches to allow a grab and go meal service. These self-contained kitchens use brand name commercial catering equipment for the storage, preparation, production and service of meals.

We also offer fully integrated temporary catering arrangements that comprise multiple buildings linked together to provide a tailor made kitchen solution. These can be linked to an existing dining structure, or to a servery building where contractors can collect their meals to be eaten in their own mess buildings. Alternatively, we can provide temporary dining facilities too.

Mobile Galley Kitchens

For large or spread out sites, we offer mobile galley kitchens, which have proven to be popular for use in ports and dockyards. These kitchen trailers are fully mobile and can be moved around site, offering maximum flexibility and enabling catering services to be easily accessible to staff working in all locations.

Read this case study on a modular kitchen and mobile galley feeders that we supplied to a dockyard.

Food Cube Satellite Feeding Stations

Our Food Cube satellite feeding stations are designed to ease the pressure on canteen servery lines and save remote workers from spending valuable time getting to and from meal breaks. Food is cooked and prepared in the main canteen and then transferred to the Food Cube located elsewhere on site, where it can be kept warm or refrigerated prior to being served. The Food Cube design allows for the retailing of hot and cold meals, snacks, sandwiches, and hot and cold drinks.

More Info?

For more information on our catering infrastructure solutions for ports and dockyards, give me a call or visit the PKL website.

Introducing the PKL Halfway House for Golf Clubs

Calling all golf clubs! Here’s an exclusive first look at our newest modular solution!

What is the Halfway House?
Our new Halfway House product is a modular servery facility designed for golf clubs. The latest addition to our popular Food Cubes range, it can be used to generate extra revenue from food sales and additional golf equipment, as well as providing toilet facilities for players.

The modular unit is constructed offsite, is delivered complete with catering equipment and arrives ready to use. It is designed to be located on the golf course to provide a range of hot and cold drinks and snacks to players during their round. The facility can also be used to sell lighter items of golf equipment such as balls, tees, waterproofs, umbrellas and gloves.

Customised Design
We custom design each facility, including catering equipment of your club’s choice. This means it can be designed to meet your exact requirements in terms of look, size, layout and use. The Halfway House is available in a number of sizes and a wide range of colours and finishes, including wood cladding, brick slip, vinyl wrap and a painted exterior. By choosing from this wide variety of options, the Halfway House can be designed to include your own branding, or finished to blend in with existing surroundings.



Flexible Procurement Options
The Halfway House is available to hire or buy. This means that you do not need a large amount of up-front capital to procure a unit. For the hire option, all service and maintenance of the building and the equipment inside is included within the monthly fee, providing a fixed monthly cost.

Key Benefits

• Generate additional profit for your golf club
• Maximise potential to sell refreshments and equipment
• Additional facilities make your course more attractive to golfers

Clubhouse Refurbishment?
We also supply temporary kitchens and dining facilities. If you’re planning to refurbish your clubhouse, we can supply temporary clubhouse facilities to ensure you remain fully operational throughout any planned works – just contact our hire team for a quote.

Beatrice's Work Experience Diary

The Marketing Team: Sam, Andy and Caz

Work experience student Beatrice joined PKL's Marketing Team this week - here is her diary of what she got up to!

At first, entering the world of work seemed quite scary, I was worried I would be given big complicated tasks and would sit wondering what had gone wrong. However, I feel like I would rather stay at work then go back to school!! Marketing is what I want to do when I am older; I knew that before I came to PKL, now, I am sure there is a place in that area of work for me.

MONDAY:

I met my ‘boss’ Sam who introduced me to a spread sheet with a forecast of everything the Marketing team need to achieve at PKL. It was then I realised that there is a lot more to marketing than I initially thought. It is all soo organised here at PKL and this spread sheet proved it. There are many parts of marketing I learnt about that I never new existed. Later on, after a guided tour of PKL, I helped Sam organise brochure requests on Goldmine, which was interesting because I had never seen a system like that before. After my lunch break, I then helped Andy set up an email newsletter, that I was very proud of; it was sent to 6,272 people!!!

Left - Designing the email newsletter, Right   - The poster about The One Show

TUESDAY:

I worked with Andy on a poster to put in the canteen of one of PKL’s proudest achievements which is going on The One Show! After lunch, Andy took me to the printers where we took the next brochure designs and made sure they were printing properly. It was so interesting to see the process of design to manufacturer, we were even allowed inside the printing factory! After lunch, I helped Andy set up a picture of PKL on The One Show to go into reception. Finally, I helped Sam and sent some emails to people who wanted a brochure.

Our visit to the printing company and a proof of the new brochure

WEDNESDAY:

This particular day helped me see the variety of work at PKL, as I helped Andy sort out a very messy Marketing cupboard. It was a lot of work, however the end result was really good and it helped make room for the next brochures which will be delivered on Friday. Andy, the Graphic Designer, has the job I would have if I worked here as I love design and working on websites. I really envy him!!

The clean new cupboard

THURSDAY:

I had a meeting with the MD Chris who set me a task of helping him research which potential countries PKL Transworld could work with. This took me most of the day, however I was happy to be helpful to PKL as they had already done A LOT for me. Finally, I worked with Caz, who was great fun and showed me how to control the back end of the Mid West Catering Equipment website and sort out the stock on sale at the moment.

Left - Designing a new picture for Reception, Right - The final result on the wall

FRIDAY:

I am now about to set up my blog that I am REALLY excited about doing! This week has been AMAZING and I now feel much happier in myself knowing for definite what I want to do when I am older - MARKETING!!

Happiness at PKL

Today is the second annual International Day of Happiness! You might remember that last year, we listed some reasons why PKL is happy. Well, we're back again this year, explaining why we are still happy! We asked a few PKL staff members what's making them happy in their departments at the moment:

"The summer is fast aproaching, which will be busy but really exciting for us, with our equipment heading off to events all over the country!" Krista, Event Hire Team

"We're very proud and happy that our colleague Lee successfully survived his parachute jump in aid of Brain Tumour Research!" Andrea, Finance

"Our reception area has just had a complete facelift, with new paint and flooring as well as a new trophy cabinet, TV screen and reception desk!" Pat, Business Support

Reception before (top) and after (bottom)

"We've had some fantastic feedback and happy customers in Dubai following our new partnership with Lowe Refrigeration." Peter, PKL Transworld

"I'm happy because we've just added a new member to the CAD team to help with all the exciting new projects we're working on at the moment!" Karsten, Kitchen Design Team

"After months of hard work, our brand new range of hire guide brochures is in the process of being printed!" Sam, Marketing

Our new hire guide brochures being printed

"I'm happy that I had the opportunity to go and watch the filming of The One Show when our KitchenPods and Food Cubes were featured on it!" Ian, Permanent Kitchens Team

"We're happy because we've received a 92% customer satisfaction rating for quality and technical support this year!" John, Kit Heaven and Manisha, Technical Support

PKL on The One Show

Eagle-eyed viewers might have spotted my fleeting appearance on The One Show on Monday, talking about PKL KitchenPods as a potential solution for schools requiring new kitchen facilities to help with implementing the School Food Plan and Universal Infant Free School Meals.

The feature looked at the issues some schools will be facing in getting ready for the changes, and touched on several potential solutions. John Vincent from The School Food Plan helped a headteacher explore a number of options to ensure her school could meet the Plan's recommendations. The PKL KitchenPod at Bush Hill Park Primary School in Enfield was featured (thanks to headteacher Sue Crisp) as an example of modular kitchen buildings which provide flexible procurement options - including purchase, rental or lease - which can help schools without funding for an upfront purchase.

The feature also discussed options such as the local authority or private caterers borrowing money to invest in school kitchens, with the knowledge that a good facility will generate a profit, enabling the money to be paid back over time. Bringing the catering in-house was another suggestion put forward in the feature. This option can provide a great solution to schools whose current catering company may no longer represent the highest quality and most cost-effective solution when faced by the increased numbers of children who will be entitled to free school meals from September.


One of our PKL Food Cubes was installed at the BBC studios for the day, for a live piece about how modular servery buildings can provide a solution to queues and congestion in school dining rooms. Mary Berry seemed to enjoy cooking pancakes in the Cube, describing it as "splendid" when interviewed by presenters Matt and Alex. Sadly we're not able to include a free Mary Berry with every Food Cube, but we do supply a variety of features and equipment,which we hope makes up for it!

I had a fantastic afternoon down at The One Show studios, watching rehearsals and pre-recordings. The studio is much smaller than I'd expected, but is run with such efficiency that a larger space really isn't necessary! I was also surprised to find that the outside filming area where our Food Cube was located is very open to the public, with people passing on the street able to watch from only a few metres away.

During a break in rehearsals, I had a chat with presenter Matt Baker, who was particularly interested in the issue as his own children don't currently have a hot meal option at school.

It was also nice to catch up with John Vincent from the School Food Plan and hear about the filming he'd done for the feature. I'm a member of the School Food Plan's Small Schools Taskforce, so we had plenty to talk about!

The show will be available to watch on BBC iPlayer until 10th March 2014, so watch it here asap if you missed it. The school meals feature starts 16 minutes in and lasts for about 10 minutes.

For more information on PKL school solutions, visit our dedicated schools website at www.schoolkitchens.com.

National School Meals Week – PKL Reminisces

This week is National School Meals Week, which got us thinking about our favourite school meals from our own school days. Having taken a very scientific survey of the office, we discovered some rather interesting trends. We fear that some of these answers show our age, but here are some of our responses to the question:

“What was your favourite school meal?”

Spam fritters followed by jam sponge pudding and custard. I also have fond memories of the Christmas pudding which had a real sixpence hidden inside.
Peter Schad, Commercial Director

Fish fingers, chips and peas.
Natalie, IT Support

Veggie lasagne.
Andy, Graphic Designer

Jacket potato with cheese. The flapjack was brilliant too and only cost 12p!
Ed, Business Development

Christmas dinner!
Alastair, CAD Designer

Lasagne!
Will, Financial Controller

Steak pie. At least, I think it was steak…
Ed, IT Manager

Chicken fricassee followed by jam roly poly.
Lynda, Finance

Fish and chips on a Friday, and the Christmas dinners.
Sam, Marketing Manager

I don’t know, but I was a plate monitor so I got to sit at the head of the table!
Sue, Office Manager

Chocolate crunch with pink custard.
Linda, Finance

Chocolate crunch with pink custard on a Friday.
Ian, KitchenPod Sales Manager

At this point, the whole office started enthusiastically reminiscing about chocolate crunch with pink custard. It appears that this was something of a phenomenon in schools across the country. There was quite some debate about how and why the custard was pink, though everyone agreed wholeheartedly that this was the best pudding they’ve ever eaten. Discussion became so animated that we decided to give up and abandon the survey. As we did though, our colleague Mike who looks after our Mid West Catering Equipment division called up. As a parting question, we asked him about his favourite school meal:

Savoury mince with fried bread… and chocolate crunch with pink custard!
Mike, Mid West Catering Equipment Sales

We despair.

As you can probably tell, most of us grew up in a time before nutrition was a top priority in schools, and when discussion turned to our least favourite school meal memories (many involving limp, grey cabbage and thick custard skin), we’re very glad that times have changed!

If you’re busy working to implement the new School Food Plan in your school, you might find it useful to read our 8 Point Plan for Schools which we wrote a few months ago in response to the Plan's announcement. We also outline a number of catering solutions for schools, as well as funding information, on our recently relaunched SchoolKitchens.com website.

We hope you’re all enjoying National School Meals Week, and hope it’s successful in promoting your school meals service. Please do give us a ring if you’d like any advice on solutions to help boost your ability to offer great school meals; we have a range of options including KitchenPods, Food Cubes and our new KitchenFM for Schools product which enables you to contract hire all your catering equipment.

Now, we’re off to look up chocolate crunch and pink custard recipes…
 

Celebrating 25 Years of PKL

This month, we are celebrating PKL’s 25 year anniversary. Over the last 25 years, we’ve undertaken 10,000 temporary kitchen hires across multiple sectors throughout the UK and around the world, and have grown to become the UK’s leading provider of outsourced catering infrastructure solutions.

Over time, the business has expanded to employ 85 people, and we now have a management and senior operations team with a collective experience of well over 100 years of working for the company, many of whom have been with us since the early days. Operating from our purpose-built head office and warehouse facility, we own 900 portable kitchen units and over 10,000 items of catering equipment which are hired to a variety of customers during kitchen refurbishments, events or during kitchen emergencies.

Some of our notable installations over the last 25 years have included large scale kitchen and dining facilities for numerous major sporting events around the world, facilities for the military in the middle east, and installations at prestigious UK sites including Buckingham Palace, Glastonbury Festival and a number of Oxford and Cambridge colleges.

The PKL Quay over time. The first image was taken 10+ years ago, the second was taken today.

In the last few years, we’ve used our experience from providing temporary commercial kitchens to move into the supply of permanent modular kitchen buildings, via our KitchenPod and Food Cube products. This has resulted in local installations at Beaufort Co-operative Academy in Gloucester and Cleeve School in Cheltenham, as well as a number of projects around the country, including supplying 100 KitchenPods to schools in Northamptonshire. In addition to these products, our recently developed modular camp kitchen and dining solutions have been supplied to a number of mining and exploration sites in Africa.

Two of our favourite photos from the PKL archives.

One of our latest developments has been the launch of KitchenFM for Schools, which is a new product designed specifically for the education sector. Following the announcement of the School Food Plan, we developed KitchenFM for Schools with support from the Children’s Food Trust. This new contract hire solution is aimed at schools looking to expand or refurbish their existing kitchens so that they can introduce or increase their school meal provision.

Over the past 25 years we have helped a large number of establishments to implement changes to their catering and dining infrastructure. We have developed a number of innovative catering solutions which have played a significant role in shaping the future of the UK’s education, health and leisure sectors, as well as ensuring that we remain the UK’s leading supplier of temporary catering infrastructure.

Our latest staff picture and a recent office photo.

We are very proud of our achievements to date and will continue to build on our expertise and knowledge. As we look to the future, we look forward to maintaining PKL’s position as a major kitchen infrastructure solutions provider on an international scale. We will also continue to build on our strong reputation for innovation, through our work on developing new and exciting solutions for the fast moving sectors in which we operate. Here’s to the next 25 years!
 

An Ode to School Kitchens

Today is National Poetry Day so, never ones to shy away from a good limerick (or eleven...), here is a poem we have written about school kitchens. Enjoy!

An Ode to School Kitchens

With the School Food Plan launched recently,
We hope schools will embrace it and see
The importance of food
And how it lifts a child’s mood.
Our advice we can offer for free.

If your current school kitchen is bad
And your poor cook is feeling quite sad,
Cheer up, come along
Click SchoolKitchens.com -
Our ideas are totally rad!

With school meals hitting the news
As they’ll be offered free up to Year 2s,
Prepare your facilities
And your school meal abilities
With our school options – click here to choose!

A modular-built KitchenPod,
Installed in a jiffy by our squad,
Is a proper kitchen building
Which your cook can show their skills in -
You could expand your school menu with… cod?

If your equipment is haunted by ghouls,
You need KitchenFM for Schools!
Hire equipment hassle-free
For a fixed monthly fee
And your cook will have all the right tools.

A Food Cube is ideal to use
If your lunchtimes are spoiled by queues.
Install one outside,
Watch your revenues rise -
You really have nothing to lose!

With Food Tech from 2014
Compulsory up to Key Stage 3,
Learning institutions
May need new solutions
And ours are the best that we’ve seen!

If you need more Food Tech teaching space
Our modular options are ace.
With a number of features,
They’re sure to please teachers,
As a flexible food learning place.

If you need some funding advice,
We’ve listed some sources (coz we’re nice!).
You can apply for the money
Without cost causing worry
So you will not need to think twice.

For a refurb or emergency hire,
Our temporary kitchens will inspire.
They’ll keep your meals running
(Our facilities are stunning!)
During building works, after flooding or fire.

And so ends our school kitchens verse -
We don’t think it could be any worse!
Though poetry’s not our thing,
Kitchens are, so give us a ring -
We’d very much like to converse! About kitchens. Really, call us. We'd love to chat.

The End.