Silver award upgrade for BaxterStorey locations
Congratulations to BaxterStorey, the catering and hospitality provider for Scottish Government workplace locations, which has upgraded to the Food for Life Served Here (FFLSH) Silver award for serving food that’s good for health, the environment and the local economy.
Scottish Government workplaces awarded are Atlantic Quay in Glasgow, and Victoria Quay, St Andrews House and Saughton House in Edinburgh. These locations serve an estimated 53,000 meals each year. BaxterStorey, which achieved the FFLSH Bronze award for the locations in April 2023, has continued its commitment to serving good food through this upgrade.
The Food for Life Scotland (FFLS) programme, led by Soil Association Scotland and funded by Scottish Government, provides a framework through which local authorities and public sector sites can ensure they are serving good food. This is done by following a set of standards to achieve the FFLSH award at Bronze, Silver or Gold level.
Increasing organic spend
For the FFLSH Silver award, award holders spend at least 5 percent of the ingredients budget for their service on organic produce. This in addition to the standards met at Bronze, including freshly preparing a minimum of 75 percent of dishes are freshly prepared from unprocessed ingredients. Meals are free from undesirable trans fats, sweeteners, additives, and all genetically modified ingredients. Catering teams also use free range eggs, higher welfare meat and ingredients from sustainable and ethical sources.
BaxterStorey serves Mossgiel organic milk at all the awarded Scottish Government Workplace locations, helping them to achieve the Silver FFLSH award. Data from the Cool Food Pro calculator – a carbon savings calculator tool created for the catering sector – shows that by using organic milk, BaxterStorey are saving an estimated 11,529 Kg CO2e every month.
FFLS in the public sector
The FFLS programme has been funded by Scottish Government since 2012. It is best known for recognising local authorities for their school meals services, with 17 Scottish local authorities holding the FFLSH award. In 2022, FFLS launched the Food for Life Scotland Public Sector Expansion Pilot, with the aim of scaling the programme to bring the award to other public sector sites, initially in Glasgow, and across Scotland in the future.
The Pilot is part of Scottish Government’s manifesto commitment to increase the use of healthy, Scottish produce and to explore how to embed a Food for Life approach in the public sector.
Mark McCulloch, Operations Director, BaxterStorey Scotland, said, “We are thrilled to receive this award and to be recognised for our ongoing commitment to championing sustainable catering practices.
“We are hugely proud of our team who celebrate provenance every day with innovative menus centred on food which not only tastes good but does good. We look forward to continuing our partnership with the Scottish Government, fuelling their workplaces with planet positive food through ongoing investment in our sustainable commitments”.
Sarah Duley, Head of Food, Soil Association Scotland, said, “Congratulations to BaxterStorey for upgrading to the Food for Life Served Here Silver award in record time. It’s a huge achievement made possible by the commitment and collaboration between Scottish Government workplaces and BaxterStorey to deliver fresh, local and sustainable food. This was the first award to be given as part of the Food for Life Scotland Public Sector Expansion Pilot, and the team have already upgraded! We look forward to more caterers following in the footsteps of both BaxterStorey and our 17 local authority caterers. The Food for Life Scotland team can offer substantial free support to public sector caterers in Glasgow to do so.”