Christmas is a very busy time for most and at Mellors its no different. Our fantastic catering teams spend the weeks leading up to the Christmas break serving their customers in schools and workplaces with thousands of delicious Christmas lunches. That’s turkey, sausages wrapped in bacon, roast potatoes, tasty vegetables, cranberry sauce, gravy and yummy desserts on a truly epic scale.

Our teams do it with enthusiasm, a smile and an amazing amount of festive cheer and we thank each and every one of them for their commitment to serving a delicious Christmas lunch each year.

This year, we’ve even received our very own video review of the Christmas lunch at Stocksbridge Junior School in Sheffield by food critic in the making Harry James, aged 9! CLICK HERE to watch what he had to say! Thanks for your review Harry.

Well done everyone and have a very merry, mince pie-filled Christmas from everyone at Mellors.

The nights are long, and a chill is in the air. The poet Sylvia Plath referred to this time of the year as “The odd uneven time”. It seems like even more of an odd time at the minute but with children still able to go to school, one thing is a constant…that’s a delicious school meal!

Mellors Managing Director, Mark Timmerman believes that a great way to ensure this time of year isn’t too odd, or uneven for that matter, is to make sure you have a good breakfast and a hot meal for lunch.

Over half the school pupils in England arrive at school without having a good breakfast. With the need for some central heating in your body, what can be better than a delicious hot, sit down school lunch with friends? This routine creates good food and socialising habits that children will take through to adulthood.

November 9^th to 13^th is National School Meals Week, so we’ve been celebrating the part Mellors plays in delivering hot, delicious and healthy school meals to pupils across the north of England. Whether it’s introducing more meat free options as part of our involvement with Meat Free Monday, sharing our favourite school meals, finding out facts about the great British roast dinner or celebrating some of our school meal heroes, Mellors loves everything about school meals!

Mark, who founded of Mellors Catering Services more than 25 years ago says,

“It’s a pleasure being part of the advancement of healthy warm school dinners in the north of England. So come on pupils, students, parents, guardians, teachers and Mellors catering staff, less “odd and uneven” and more warm meals and smiles this Autumn!”

So long live the fantastic school meal!

Our own Mellors Big Red Bus might currently be parked up and awaiting it’s next school visit but we’re delighted to announce that Mellors have been awarded the contract to supply catering facilities to bus company, Arriva North West.

Starting in November, our delicious, fresh and locally sourced food will be available to Arriva North West’s bus drivers, conductors, engineers and support staff across five sites in Birkenhead, Bootle, Green Lane, Speke and St. Helens.

We’re looking forward to welcoming Arriva North West into the Mellors family of catering units and being able to provide our tasty food and refreshing drinks to their staff and visitors.

Beep Beep!

The last few months have surely been the strangest any of us have encountered at Mellors. As well as managing the effect the pandemic has had on our catering units, we’ve also been getting used to presenting for new contracts via video calls.

This new way of doing business has been a challenge but, for the Business Development team, has presented an opportunity to try something different, reduce travel and be innovative when it comes to the tender process.

Presenting to potential clients via Zoom or Microsoft Teams has seen our team be successful in 19 tenders and, we’re delighted to have opened 63 new units in September! These new openings bring our total number of units across the North of England to 336, with more to open over the next few months!

We’re extremely happy to have welcomed all of the teams from these new units to the Mellors family. We’re also very pleased to have been able to welcome back so many of our staff from units that have been closed over the summer period.

A big thank you also goes to all our suppliers who have been a great support over the last few months, keeping the units we had open stocked with everything they need. They have also been instrumental in getting all units up and running in September.

Mellors, as a team, are now working on the new challenges facing catering teams in this unusual time, with our usual positivity and smiles, albeit behind masks for the time being.

During the last few months we’ve been doing lots of things to make sure we stay in touch with our staff. This has included regular emails, video calls, online quizzes and more! Thursday 17^th September saw the first of the new Mellors Zoom Events. There are four planned and these are fun events for our teams to get involved with, see some familiar faces and get some useful information.

Our first session featured Mark T (Mellors founder and Managing Director), Tony T (Mellors Chief Operating Officer) and Laura N (Mellors Marketing Manager) as host. It was fantastic to see so many of the Mellors team getting involved with this, the biggest zoom event we’ve have ever experienced. Thank you to everyone tuned in.

In this session we covered the dos and don’ts of video conferences, with Tony giving us all some useful tips. Mark and Tony also gave everyone a fantastic insight into the current activities going on across Mellors and what the plans are for the business in the coming five years, and attendees were able to ask questions and get them answered in real-time by Mark and Tony, talk about accountability.

But it wouldn’t have been a Mellors event without some fun and in this case, cowboy hats and where’s Wally? To see what we mean, and learn why the session was called ‘Mayonnaise and Two Cups of Coffee’ – head over to our YouTube channel to WATCH NOW!

The Mellors Christmas Party went with a bang! All 250 attendees enjoyed the masquerade theme, casino tables, an all-new photo party mirror and a well sung Christmas Carol by the Area Manager choir. All raising a massive £2,540 for Zoe’s Place Baby Hospice.

At the Christmas party we presented three prestigious awards for achievements over the last 12 months.

This year’s award winners are:

St Richard’s Primary, Wigan – Small unit of the year award
Queensbury Academy, Bradford – Large unit of the year award
Alison Baker from Burton Fields Primary, Burton –on –Trent – Special recognition award

It might be getting closer to spring, but the dull weather is still likely to make us feel a bit sluggish. Why not give your teams a boost with super brain foods to help boost their productivity and mood throughout the day? There is a wide variety of super foods available. So to help you out we’ve selected super foods which are widely available, and you are able to eat on the go, at your work space and for your main meals too.

1. Salmon
   Salmon is one of the best for boosting productivity as it has high omega-3 content and improves memory and mental performance. 
2. Berries
   Berries are also excellent for increasing memory and improving brain function as they are rich in antioxidants. A fun fact about berries, the darker the berry is, the higher antioxidant property it contains.
3. Green Tea
   Green tea is a good substitute for regular caffeinated tea or coffee as it is a natural energy enhancer. Again, like berries green tea is loaded with antioxidants as well as other nutrients that have positive effects on your mind and body, including fat loss.
4. Water
   This may not be food, but it is still enormously useful for enhancing productivity. Since water makes up most of the body every function depends on water to work smoothly.

Mental illnesses affect 19% of the adult population, 46% of teenagers and 13% of children each year. As we’re sure you will already be aware the general perception of mental health has improved over the past decade but there is still a lot of work to be done to break down the stereotypes surrounding mental illness and improve everyone’s education and knowledge of this vitally important subject.

Mental health, like physical health, is not always fixed and can fluctuate throughout our lives. There are many factors that can affect someone’s mental health; whether it’s home life, relationships, physical health, work life or general emotions. 

At Mellors Catering Services we understand that as an employer we need to try our hardest to break the mental health stigma by offering as much support as possible to our employees. To do this, we need to be confident our management team are trained and educated on mental health and know how to recognise the signs of a mental illness.

We’re proud to announce that on 6^th February 2020, 37 of our management team attended a Mental Health Awareness training course at the Best Western Lancashire Manor Hotel. The training, provided by UK Healthcare, was focused on mental health conditions, wellbeing and how to create a positive working atmosphere for employees. The management team learned what wellbeing is and how finding the right balance is imperative to keeping a healthy mindset. They explored how a sufferer may feel when struggling with their mental health and how impactful workplace stress can be on someone’s mindset. The training included a presentation, exercises, identifying our own stresses and how to overcome them. The management team also picked up helpful resources to share with our teams. The training was rounded up with the management team understanding how important it is to start a conversation around mental health and being aware of those around them.

Since the training day we have received lots of positive feedback from the team who really appreciated the training and feel confident to help support their teams to make sure there is a positive atmosphere across the business.

As well as this training for our management team, our Mental Health First Aiders within our HR team are on hand through the Mellors absence hotline to help staff who are struggling with their mental health.

Thank you to everyone who made our Mega Day such a success!

On Sunday 17^th November, more than 150 people attended our yearly event at Lancashire Manor Hotel in Skelmersdale and spent the day networking with colleagues, meeting suppliers and learning new skills.

The day included sessions on our new allergen process in Education units, the best cleaning chemicals to use and the versatility of products, labelling and packaging and Theme Day planning. Attendees also met a number of our key suppliers at the Supplier Expo!

It was great to see so many of our Catering Managers, team members and Area Managers attend the day and throw themselves into each of the activities and sessions with such enthusiasm.

Each attendee went away with lots of useful new skills, connections and ideas to take back to their units, as well as 5 ‘Mellors Standards’ cards to remind them of the learnings from the day.

Being eco-friendly isn’t just a trend, or a resolution to make one or two changes throughout 2020. It’s a continuous need and we should always be on the lookout for various ways to become more and more eco-friendly, constantly!

Here at Mellors we have collated 3 easy and simple tips, which can be done almost immediately, on how to contribute towards keeping catering eco-friendly in your kitchens and at home.

Menu choices

It’s become a well-known fact recently, that farming vegetables is much more sustainable than farming animals. The livestock sector is one of the most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems.  A considerable impact can be made on the environment by just choosing one day a week to try a meat-free menu.

Veganism felt as if it was once just a trend but feels as if it is now an important lifestyle choice for many people, and many companies clearly feel this way too. There has been an increase in meat-free recipes and products out on the market so trying to fit some tasty meat-free food into your menu couldn’t be easier.

Using sustainable materials

In more and more places, you will find paper straws or even no straws as a replacement of plastic straws. It has now become normal to cut these products out completely and you could even find yourself looking down on companies that haven’t yet made the switch.

Substituting plastic straws is an amazing step in the right direction, and there are so many other items you can switch out for more environmentally friendly options. For example, plastic cutlery can be replaced by reusable cutlery. Which could also save you money in the long term.

Beverage stations

Having reusable drink stations (without plastic cups), will motivate people to bring or use reusable cups or reusable water bottles. By investing in stations, the disposable plastic can decrease dramatically. Also, you can offer healthier alternatives to bottled water and fizzy drinks by infusing beverages with fresh fruits.

We hope these simple tips help you to think more about your impact on the environment. If you’d like to share some more tips with us, why not get in touch on twitter?