Driving continuous improvement for Bishop Hogarth Catholic Education Trust
Overview
Since partnering with allmanhall in 2024, Bishop Hogarth Catholic Education Trust (BHCET) experienced a smooth mobilisation of 33 of their 35 schools and continues to enjoy double-digit savings on their food purchasing, considerable administrative savings both in time and money, expert dietetic advice, and detailed analysis of their food supply chain, enabling them to serve quality meals that don’t cost the earth.
Working with allmanhall gives Bishop Hogarth an extension rather than a replacement of their in-house procurement team.
“As we all can appreciate change is one of the most difficult things to manage and I admit due to the scale of the change we at the Trust were apprehensive on how moving from a long-standing supplier to yourselves (allmanhall) would impact the 31 schools within the Trust. Due to the excellent mobilisation team, the transition was very good. We received excellent communication, problem solving and training.”
– Cordelia Percy, previously Trusts Facilities Lead
Background
Bishop Hogarth Catholic Education Trust (BHCET) are a multi-academy trust that manage 35 Catholic schools based in the south of the Diocese of Hexham and Newcastle across Darlington, County Durham, Stockton and Hartlepool.
The Trust’s vision is to provide quality education based on Catholic values, fostering a sense of community. BHCET emphasise the importance of faith, personal development, and academic excellence.
What did the client need?
BHCET were concerned that they were not receiving best value, support, or added value through their existing procurement partner. Their focus was on partnering with an organisation who could support the Trust to deliver ongoing food cost savings without impacting food quality.
Support was of real importance for the Trust – support for their catering teams, operational teams and central Trust team. They were looking to help their teams to become more efficient and able to focus on delivering their food service to the pupils, rather than dealing with supplier issues.
The Trust were also looking for a procurement partner who could provide a platform to deliver online ordering, menu management and financial reporting.
In terms of added value, they were looking for a robust and industry-leading approach to nutrition, sustainability, training and contract mobilisation.
What was the result?
The Trust undertook a tendering exercise for their food procurement in November 2023 and awarded allmanhall the contract in February 2024.
A smooth mobilisation of all 31 schools, with comprehensive staff training and communication throughout, gave the Trust reassurance that they had chosen the right food procurement partner in allmanhall.
The Trust achieved food cost savings of 10.1% without impacting food quality or supply – BHCET enjoyed 98% order fulfilment in the first three months of their partnership with allmanhall.
Benefitting from allmanhall’s bespoke controls platform enabled the Trust to make considerable administrative savings both in time and money. 878 monthly invoices across the Trust were reduced to just 30. The catering team consistently use allmanhall’s platform for stocktaking, wastage, ordering and recipes.
The controls platform is integrated with a live labelling platform. When a recipe is entered, it goes directly to this platform and labels can be printed that meet the Pre-Packed for Direct Sale (PPDS) Natasha’s Law legislation. This makes the process efficient and supports compliance with current labelling legislation.
When it comes to adding value, allmanhall have provided BHCET with allergen management training, special diets advice and nutritional menu reviews, all delivered by the company’s hugely experienced Registered Dietitian.
Alongside expert dietetic advice, allmanhall’s Sustainability Dashboards provide the Trust with detailed analysis of their food supply chain, enabling them to make product swaps that don’t cost the earth. The Buying team have started tracking the Trust’s ruminant spend, MCS fish ratings, and sustainable palm oil usage. In the latest procurement review, allmanhall demonstrated improvements and have since recommended ways to further solutions.
allmanhall are supporting BHCET with their housekeeping, installing dosing systems with a soft roll out taking place in September 2025.
What did the client say?
“As we all can appreciate change is one of the most difficult things to manage and I admit due to the scale of the change we at the Trust were apprehensive on how moving from a long-standing supplier to yourselves would impact the 31 schools within the Trust.
Due to the excellent mobilisation team, the transition was very good. We received excellent communication, problem solving and training.”
– Cordelia Percy, previously Trusts Facilities Lead