The Professional Nursery Kitchen - Jonathan Player

Pre-school childcare is booming as working parents look for safe and stimulating havens for their youngsters. While nurseries have come a long way in recent years, one area that can still be an issue is meal times. Children need their meals to have the right balance of nutrition, to be healthy and safe, and, of course, to taste good. The food supplier also has to be able to cope with any special dietary requirements.

Despite the boom, no foodservice company has set up a CPU dedicated to the specific needs of nursery foodservice – until now. The Professional Kitchen is a new company created to supply nurseries with lunches, five days a week.

Meals are made in a purpose-built facility in Basildon, Essex, which local EHO officers described as ‘the best central production unit’ they had ever seen. It was designed and installed by PHCC Limited and is planned so that food is moved around the building with no danger of cross contamination – a system that relies on a suite of seventeen coldrooms, built by British manufacturer Williams Refrigeration.

The Professional Kitchen is already preparing 1,000 meals a day – and interest is such that the figure is likely to rise to 2,500 or more per day soon. Jonathan Player is the managing director of the new company. His family run ten nurseries in the region, so they have considerable experience of the market.