Acocks Green Primary School - Tender for Catering Services

The successful supplier will be required to provide catering services for Acocks Green Primary School.

The guaranteed performance contract will commence on 1 August 2018 for an initial period of 3 years, with the opportunity to extend for a further period at the discretion of the school governing body. This is the first time the market has been tested for the catering service.

The client expects the successful supplier to enable the continued development of catering through the provision of an innovative, healthy food service, with fresh, seasonal, locally sourced ingredients being prepared in the well-appointed kitchen on-site. The client expects the successful supplier to evidence, through their bid, how they shall support and complement their stated target. The client requires year one menus to be fully compliant with the Food for Life Silver standard.

The contract covers the scope for the provision of catering services, which currently includes: lunch, all hospitality and free issue requirements. There is a Breakfast Club that is managed directly by the client. Meals shall be charged at £2.10 on consumption for the first year of the contract, with hospitality and free issues at net cost, e.g. 12 staff meals per day.

The client intends to focus heavily on healthy, fresh, seasonal, locally sourced produce and sees the catering service as an exciting opportunity to complement the overall pupil experience, through the regular introduction of new ingredients, themed and promotional events. The successful supplier will be required to play their part in acting as a catalyst for improvement of the pupil experience.

Please note that the successful supplier will pay a proportion of the consultancy fee on award of this contract, which will be to the value of £2,500.00 plus VAT. This fee will be invoiced after the 10 day standstill period. To ensure transparency, you will clearly show within your management fee a breakdown of this fee, over the length of the contract. The total full fee will be paid by the successful supplier in full to Litmus by no later than Friday 25 May 2018.

The successful supplier will work closely with the client to manage the provision of catering and the overall "meal experience". The value of the current catering contract is circa £119K per annum.

Suppliers' thoughts regarding how to support the client's catering improvement objectives within the term of the initial contract are welcome. The school is already "cashless" with either "entitled" parents, or a prepaid cash amount for each half-term's meals, paid in advance via the online "ParentPay" payment system. Parents currently pay for a minimum of one week's meals at a time, enabling planning of catering volumes, with pupils selecting their preferred option at the point of service.

The client invites supplier to consider offers of appropriate capital investment.

Additional information: Interest in the selection process should be expressed via email only to pqq@litmuspartnership.co.uk clearly stating within this email which contract / notice you are referring to. Please also provide, as a minimum, a contact name, full company postal address and telephone number.

The Selection Questionnaire and associated documents can be obtained at: http://www.litmuspartnership.co.uk/project/acocks_green_primary_school

The closing date for receipt of the Selection Questionnaire is 26.1.2018 (12:00). Suppliers are required to ensure that documents are obtained and returned to The Litmus Partnership Limited, by email to pqq@litmuspartnership.co.uk by the above closing date and time.

Documents in respect of economic / financial standing (where indicated in the Selection Questionnaire) shall be returned to The Litmus Partnership Limited, by email to pqq@litmuspartnership.co.uk by the above closing date and time.

It will be the Supplier's responsibility to obtain any necessary documents in order to submit a response by the closing date and time.

The contracting authority reserves the right not to award any or part of the contract which is the subject of this Contract Notice and reserves the right to terminate the procurement process at any time.

The contracting authority will not be liable for any costs incurred by those expressing an interest in tendering for this contract opportunity.

The contracting authority will consider variant bids, evaluating them (so far as the variant or the evaluation of the variant is in the opinion of the contracting authority practicable) on the same basis as a conforming bid, but shall not be obliged to accept any such bid in preference to a conforming bid even if the variant bid scores more highly. No variant will be considered unless the bidder simultaneously submits a conforming bid.