As part of Food Waste Action Week, we’re spotlighting schools making real change in the fight against food waste.
Today, we hear how Quinton House School and their catering team are taking a stand against waste with Olio (across three separate kitchens!), overcoming single-use packaging problems, and inspiring students (and their parents) to get involved in the school’s sustainability drive.
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Dawn McCue is the Chartwell’s Catering Manager at Quinton House School. When she heard about other schools in her network working with Olio to share surplus food, she knew it aligned perfectly with the sustainability values she and her team already champion at Quinton House. So, since January this year, they’ve been having weekly food collections that have quickly become an integral part of kitchen operations.
“It’s been really straightforward,” Dawn explains. “It’s just another part of our weekly routine now.”
“We’ve had really reliable volunteer coverage, and whoever we’ve got collecting food each week is always courteous, polite, thankful and appreciative”.
Putting their positive impact into perspective
Through their monthly reports, Dawn and her team can put the positive impact they’re having into perspective (including meals saved, water saved, and carbon emissions avoided). Plus, they can present those results to their client, the school’s headmaster.
“When the client was faced with the report that showed how much , he was definitely impressed.” Dawn shares. “It’s visual, and when you see something laid out in such clear terms, I think that really makes you think, ‘we are making a difference.'”
Flexible collections for food going spare at short notice
While their main Olio collection happens every Friday – strategically scheduled to prevent weekend food waste – the team also appreciates the flexibility of arranging additional collections when needed.
“Michelle’s done a couple of additional pickups, in addition to our weekly scheduled ones” Dawn notes, referring to Michelle Cox, the school’s Head Chef, who has been with Quinton House for nearly three years.
This flexibility is particularly valuable for a school operating three separate kitchens: the prep school kitchen serving 2-11 year olds, the senior school kitchen for 11-16 year olds, and their innovative “Food for Thought” van – a container converted into a grab-and-go kitchen facility that prepares students for the world beyond school.
Embedding sustainability across their kitchens
For Michelle and Dawn, Olio is just one component of their broader commitment to sustainability. Michelle, who recently completed her NVQ (National Vocational Qualification) level four – with a dissertation on sustainability – brings her passion for reducing food waste to work every day.
“We’re really passionate here about reducing food waste,” Dawn emphasizes. “We do as much as we can to keep that down.”
Their innovative approaches include:
- Making carrot jam from vegetable peelings
- Using cauliflower stalks and leaves for soups and hummus
- Creating broccoli stalk hummus
- Flavoring water stations with herb trimmings, pineapple scraps, and citrus peels that would otherwise be discarded
They’re also careful to monitor waste across the board – including pre-production waste (unavoidable items like eggshells), post-production leftovers, and plate waste.
The team tracks these metrics daily across all three kitchens, creating valuable data that supports both their internal goals and the school’s broader environmental initiatives, including work toward Green Flag accreditation.
Engaging the school community to solve packaging challenges
The team faced one practical challenge when partnering with Olio: packaging. Without a return system for containers, they initially found themselves “hemorrhaging” reusable items like mayonnaise pots and margarine tubs, that they would normally repurpose internally.
And when trying to operate more sustainably by reducing food waste, the last thing they wanted to do is increase their plastic consumption, by having to buy a load of takeaway containers themselves. Their solution? Engage the school community.
“We’ve reached out to the school to ask parents to bring in any takeaway containers that they might not need,” Dawn explains. “If they get a Chinese or an Indian [takeaway] and they keep the plastic containers, can they bring them in so that we can use them?”
This innovative approach not only solves a practical problem – but also deepens community involvement in the school’s sustainability efforts.
Looking ahead to the future
Having completed their initial six-week trial with Olio, Dawn didn’t hesitate to continue the partnership. “I don’t want to stop now,” she says emphatically.
The collaboration with Olio goes hand-in-hand with Quinton House School’s broader environmental goals, including their work toward Green Flag accreditation. It also enhances the catering team’s reputation within the school community.
As Food Waste Action Week highlights innovative approaches to tackling this global challenge, partnerships like the one between Quinton House School, Chartwells, and Olio demonstrate how organizations of all types can make meaningful contributions – one collection at a time.
This article is part of our Food Waste Action Week content series, highlighting organizations making real change in the fight against food waste. For more inspiration and ideas, follow our blog throughout the week.