Can anyone explain to me how these people sleep at night? I just don’t understand how a company that feeds kids can see a profit rise of 30% as anything other than a damning indictment of the quality of their food and treatment of their workers.
@CatherineFlick It’s U.K. plc at its most obscene.
I mean don’t get me wrong, I understand that it’s a business and that a profit is one of the aims of that. My dad was a very successful food manufacturer and had a profitable business in that for a long time. But his key thing was quality - with quality, fair pricing and fair treatment of people came good business. And he stood his ground against the big (Aussie) supermarkets on this and won. I just don’t understand this alternative approach.
@CatherineFlick because their profit feed pensioners and there are more of them than kids.
Not saying i agree but ... Sadly how these people think.
@CatherineFlick The worse food they provide to kids in comprehensive schools, the more smug they can feel about the quality of the food their kids are given at their expensive schools.
@CatherineFlick Stuuctures, systems and dilution of responsibility. The modern corporation is set up so that the decisions made are funneled down a particular path, irrespective of the good or bad intentions of the indevidual. Each person probably believes they are making the best choices available to them within the limiting constraints imposed by "someone else" in the system.
@CatherineFlick I'm sure they are roughly as shitty as any other profit-seeking plc, but a rise in profits really doesn't tell us anything useful about the quality of their food. (If their profits fell, would you conclude that their food must now be excellent?) They made £2bn profit on about £30bn turnover, which doesn't sound like wild profiteering. £20bn of that turnover was in N America. I mean, maybe the UK school dinners are a ripoff, but it's a claim that requires more evidence than this.
Everything is just about the money now. My local dentist for example since being gobbled up by Portman Dental Care group now no longer accepts new NHS patients. If you fall off the NHS registry for any reason - like if your dentist retires, you can't get back on. They're only interested in high profit Private dental care.
Socially responsible business doesn't have much status in today's Western world.
@CatherineFlick Also, look at the dates. The latest possible period an annual financial report issued in Nov 2023 could cover starts in Nov 2022. The previous year (the one we compare against to get a 30% rise) must have started in Nov 2021 or earlier. COVID restrictions in England ended in April 2022. I'm not exactly gobsmacked that a catering firm is more profitable in the first full financial year without COVID restrictions.
@Abelian schools and such were back before then! Though I’ll agree it probably wasn’t back to full steam.
@CatherineFlick Oh, absolutely. But UK schools are a tiny part of what the company does. We're all looking at that headline 30% figure, which relates to all sorts of activity, 2/3 of it in N America, and drawing dire conclusions about UK school meals. Global profits went sharply down in 2020/21 (hurrah!) and came back up again in 2022/23 (boo!). The figures for Le Manoir probably look fairly similar, so I'm not convinced that that in itself tells us very much about the quality of school meals.
@Di4na but I mean surely they aren’t this cartoon villain about it? I just don’t understand the thought processes
@CatherineFlick what is cartoony villain about considering that feeding millions of fragile, old people that contributed to society for years is an important thing? Especially when historically, being retired means being poor af statistically?
Not saying i endorse, but this is how they think about it. And they are not wrong.
@Di4na I don’t think they really think like this though? Unless they hate kids?
@CatherineFlick I mean you can ask them. I have seen this kind in the wild. They know their shareholders are all pension funds and equivalents. It is not that they hate kids. It is that the pensioners are constantly reminded to them and are what they were trained to think of.
Kids... Are not.
@CatherineFlick Plus there’s just that possibility (but I don’t know for sure) that their contract was not won through the normal channels of pricing and competition. I could, of course, be entirely wrong in this but a litany of government-awarded contract scandals over the past few years (in particular) has turned me into a suspicious cynic.
@CatherineFlick the competion here is not about quality though. The schools will have to take the lowest bidder. If the only thing you let companies compete on is price then the quality will always be low. Its not the schools fault either as they don't have any money to pay for better quality. It was these children who caused the 2008 financial crisis so its them that must pay. It does not excuse the people involved but its not like there is any pressure to do anything else.
@CatherineFlick I think it’s the part where you said profit is “one of” the aims. I think in late-stage capitalist reality it’s the only one, which is pretty tragic.
@wzdd PS I added an o ring to my tap thing and it’s perfect now, thanks for the suggestion!
@CatherineFlick OK! I wonder why the hell it didn't come with an O-ring.
@choffee gotta say though if you’re making profit enough that they’re up 30% you’re going well below the quality you can get at the price point I suspect
@choffee @CatherineFlick the thing that gets me here is that contracts mean the Southampton school mentioned are tied in, despite there now being a city wide coop which does good quality school dinners at near cost price. Why doesn’t the contract have an escape clause if the supplier fails to deliver on what they’re being paid for?
Sorry to interject, but schools do *not* have to select solely on cost.
Schools have several routes to purchasing things like catering - for example using frameworks:
https://buyingforschools.blog.gov.uk/2023/05/25/a-beginners-guide-to-using-frameworks-for-school-buying/
That allows them to select on exactly what they value - which might be cost, or quality, or variety, or SLA etc
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/find-a-dfe-approved-framework-for-your-school
Undoubtedly some schools do go for the cheapest - but they can fire their caterer if they don't perform to standard.
@choffee @CatherineFlick
Like, don't get me wrong, this company sound like arses.
But at least schools now have a chance to change away from crappy caterers if they're delivering slop.
@Edent @CatherineFlick I will hold my hands up to no knowing the details. My comment about cost was a more general one on the financial pressure schools find themselves under.
Haha! A mini-one-stop-shop for all your bullying. Two victims for the price of one!
@CatherineFlick @Edent @choffee I made the same mistake & wouldn’t have realised without your post.
@Edent @CatherineFlick @choffee interesting, thanks!
As chair of our primary schools PTA, it is always frustrating when the school cannot use local people to provide goods and services and their hands are tied to the county council approved suppliers list.
Good to know there are means for local businesses to get 'in the door' provided the managers of the frameworks are open to this. I'd guess framework agreements work at council level, not per school!
@Slash909uk I don't know where you live, but local suppliers can usually register on council frameworks.
See, for example, https://westberks.gov.uk/procurement
Most frameworks that I've seen are somewhat size agnostic. Although a sole trader is unlikely to win a contract to build a new school by themselves 🙂
@Edent I'm in Woolton Hill, Hampshire (but almost West Berkshire.) Looks similar for Hampshire frameworks too 👍
https://www.hants.gov.uk/business/contracting-direct
Not sure if they cover any of our PTA work building outdoor learning facilities.. I'll take a look.
Thank you!
@cloudhopper hard same. Apparently the school has no choice either