Appleton Academy - Tender for Catering Services

The successful tenderer will be required to provide catering services at Appleton Academy. Appleton Academy is part of a Multi-Academy Trust. Other schools in the Trust may require services at some point during the contract term.

The contract covers the scope for the provision of all catering services within the School, which also includes all hospitality and free issue requirements.

The duration of the contract being offered is 3 years commencing on 31.10.2016 and concluding on 30.10.2019. The contract may be extended at the Governing Body's option for a further period of 1 year plus 1 year, with mutual agreement to the budget but otherwise on the same terms and conditions.

The contract being offered within this tender will be based on a guaranteed performance basis with all free issue requirements and hospitality being recharged on consumption at ‘net’ food cost only.

Appleton Academy, located in Wyke, just south of Bradford was opened in November 2012 after an extensive design and build phase, which led to the creation of a new 22 000 000 GBP building to replace 2 predecessor schools.

It is expected that the contract will continue to run on a profit return with no subsidy — there is no subsidy associated with the contract.

The School are Not solely looking for the successful tenderer to provide inward capital investment, but are looking for fresh and rejuvenated marketing of catering facilities, which could require investment if suggested, thus improving on the current provision and ensuring that the amount of time spent queuing by pupils is reduced across all break periods.

The quality of food provision will be critical and indeed your organisation must be flexible enough to source bakery, meat, fruit and vegetables and dairy products through local suppliers based no more than 30 miles from the School. It is expected that menus will feature and utilise products in season when available.

Customer engagement will be fundamental to the continuous improvement in the service provision and within your tender response your methodology to this will need to be detailed along with examples of where this has been undertaken within similar contracts recently.

The successful contractor should have similar operations within the local area thus ensuring that the Operational Management Team responsible for the contract is available for regular unplanned visits and support for the contract, and that coverage for any planned or unplanned leave from within the establishment staffing structure can be easily provided.

Additional information: Interest in the pre-qualification 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 pre-qualification questionnaire and associated documents can be obtained at: http://www.litmuspartnership.co.uk/project/appleton_academy

The closing date for receipt of the Pre-Qualification Questionnaire is 25.4.2016 (12:00). Tenderers 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 Pre-Qualification 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 Tenderer'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 OJEU 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.