Food and menus

Sedbergh School’s team of professional chefs prepare and serve over half a million meals to pupils and staff in 9 boarding Houses over a school year.

Our aim is to provide healthy, nutritious food that promotes wellbeing, is as sustainable as it can be in our region and provides a sense of fun at mealtimes in the Houses through the week for pupils.

In house dining

Sedbergh School is committed to ‘in House dining’ where pupils always have meals at their home Boarding House.

This provides a sense of community and family for pupils at mealtimes. At lunch especially, pupils come together with House staff for a well-balanced nutritious meal, enjoy each other’s company and engage with visiting guests. House dining rooms have a warm, very home like atmosphere on these days.

With in House dining the House staff can check a pupils food consumption and ensure that they are getting enough calories and variety of foods.

Sustainability

We are always conscious of our food miles and the impact on the environment our catering operations have.

Being a north of England school, we can source some terrific local produce through our local grocer Martin Powell; Wilja potatoes from Orchard Farm near Pilling in Lancashire- chefs will peel over 10,000 pounds of those in a year; fresh broccoli and cauliflower from Hornby Farms on the Hesketh Bank again in Lancashire; and Swede from Stewarts of Tayside in Scotland.

Our butchery items come from a regional butcher – Caterite, Cockermouth – who source Beef, Pork, Lamb and Chicken locally and from around the British Isles. We buy fresh Salmon from Hodgsons Fish of Hartlepool.

Nutrition and dietary requirements

Sedbergh School provides nutritious well-balanced meals that fuel our pupils for the classroom as well as the playing fields the whole school year. Menus are reviewed by a certified nutritionist and measured against the government guidelines for School Food Standards.

Recipes included in the 3-week menu are a blend of British favorites and creative mix of international dishes that today’s teenagers will find exciting. We always have two nutritionally important vegetables with each weekday lunch, offer a variety of starchy carbohydrate dishes throughout the week and whole fruit is available all the time in Houses.

A salad bar with a variety of nutrient rich foods as well as a super food daily salad selection is always available.

Dietary Requirements

Pupils with specific dietary requirements are catered for with the utmost care and attention at Sedbergh School. We do provide Coeliac diets, Halal, Lactose free or vegetarian and vegan menu items. All our chefs have completed Allergen and food intolerance training and are highly aware of the importance of following guidelines and procedures when preparing food for pupils with food allergies and intolerances. Custom meal plans can always be made up with pupil and parent input.

We are a nut ‘safe’ school, where we will not intentionally put tree or ground nuts on any of our menus or allow nuts into our food supply chain.