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Even the best cooks often don’t have a detailed understanding of early years nutritional planning, allergen control and food safety. At Nursery Kitchen, we employ a team of experts who specialise in preparing the best meals for young children.
When a cook is employed to work on-site, nurseries will inevitably face periods of absence, which require cover. Typically, this falls onto the nursery team which can put tremendous pressure on the nursery and take the team away from their primary focus – the children.
By partnering with Nursery Kitchen, nurseries can ensure that children receive consistently safe, healthy, and tasty meals and snacks.
Our team of expert chefs prepare meals by hand in our professional, SALSA accredited kitchen. We meticulously follow recipes created by our Development Chef and approved by our specialist Early Years Nutritionist to ensure that we provide consistently tasty and nutritious meals for children.
Once cooked, our meals are packaged into recyclable foil trays, sealed, and chilled (not frozen). We keep the meals at the same temperature from that moment onwards, moving from our kitchen, into our bespoke temperature-controlled delivery vehicles, right up to carefully packing the meals away into the nursery’s fridge.
Nursery Kitchen lovingly prepares fresh, tasty, and nutritious meals and snacks specially for nursery schools, using only the best ingredients. With a wholesome menu packed with flavours from around the world, nurseries can take children on exciting taste adventures, where they can develop a love for healthy food for life.
nurserykitchen.co.uk
Our meals are made by hand using the best, fresh ingredients, and then quickly chilled to preserve the nutritional and sensory quality of the meals. We deliver meals to nurseries chilled, not frozen, as we believe that fresh is best! Our meals have a 7-day shelf life, which is rigorously tested to ensure our meals stay safe, fresh, and healthy. We do not add preservatives to any of our dishes.
We source ingredients from farms that share our vision on animal welfare and reducing environmental impact. All our fish is MSC Certified, and we use pole and line caught tuna and salmon as this has a better environmental impact. To minimise the risk of fish bones, we only use the premium tail end of the salmon fillet. All our meat is Red Tractor, higher welfare.
Our meals are not organic; however, we do use some organic ingredients such as coconut milk, coconut oil, gluten free oat flour, gluten free plain flour. We also offer some organic products on our grocery menu, such as, rice cakes and corn cakes.
We believe that young children shouldn’t consume sugary foods, as sugar can lead to tooth decay and health problems in later life. That’s why our menu does not contain any added sugar. We’re very proud to say that we offer a delicious and healthy range of puddings without any sugar, including, rice puddings, fruit crumbles, natural yoghurt, and a variety of fruits. Our menu does contain naturally occurring sugars from fruit.
We do not add salt to our meals, however, some stocks and gravies that we use do contain a small amount of salt. Any cheese used in our meals will also contain a small amount of salt. We ensure that the nutritional values of our meals meet or most often exceed government guidance, outlined in the Eat Better Start Better guidelines.
Our menus are designed to offer a variety of delicious dishes for children with different dietary requirements, allergies, and intolerances. Each day there are several tasty dishes to choose from, so nurseries can tailor their menu for the children in their care. Nurseries can find a range of fish, meat, vegetarian, and vegan meals on our menu.
We always provide expert allergen support to help ensure that children are kept safe at mealtimes. In fact, 50% of our dishes of not contain any of the 14 named allergens whatsoever!
Young children can be unsettled by change in their diet, particularly if they have experienced patterns of suddenly disliking foods in the past. It is widely understood that a child often needs to experience a dish or new food between 10 and 15 times before they begin to feel confident with it. For this reason, we support our nursery partners to encourage positive eating experiences for children, and strategies for developing children’s palates to relish the taste of healthy and diverse foods.
We provide recipe cards for each of our dishes so that parents can make our meals at home – they’re delicious and healthy for the entire family!
Check out our health & nutrition page for the latest recipes.
We deliver to your nursery twice weekly. We prefer to deliver when your setting is closed, this avoids disruption in busy settings and ensures your fridge is packed correctly. However, we will deliver at a time that suits you, so please talk to us about your delivery preferences.
Absolutely! We would be proud to give you a tour of our kitchen, meet the Chefs, taste our freshly prepared meals, and of course, hear your feedback. We exist solely to provide tasty, healthy, and nutritious meals for children, and we welcome any visit. If you would like to visit us, please contact: hello@nurserykitchen.co.uk.
We use pure olive and sunflower oil for cooking in our kitchens. In the case that palm oil is used in a sub ingredient or by one of our partner suppliers (bakery etc), we are committed to sourcing from RSPO certified sources only. This ensures that growers commit to principles of environmental responsibility and conservation.
Nursery Kitchen is unable to provide short-term cover for nurseries, as we prefer a six-week implementation process to ensure a smooth and successful transition.
To ensure a smooth transition into your nursery, we prefer a six-week implementation process. During this time, we’ll help you to prepare your team, children, and parents for the exciting change to mealtimes. We’ll also support you to create your own nutritionally balanced menu and help with allergens and preferences. Education is a critical part of implementing a change to your food service and in true partnership we rely on you to educate your parents as we educate your staff.
Please bear in mind that Nursery Kitchen is in high demand and growing fast. This means that there may be occasions when the implementation time is slightly longer than six weeks, to ensure that we can provide the highest quality of service. Your start date will always be discussed and confirmed with you at sign-up.
