The latest news and headlines from City Catering
Creative Writing Competition 2025
To celebrate National Writing Day, an annual celebration of the power of writing creatively, we are offering all pupils that attend one of our member primary schools the chance to win a £15 book token that can be used during this year’s summer holidays.
Today we’re launching or #Summer challenge to WIN a book voucher. We want to inspire children of all ages and abilities to get writing. To enter, we want to know why your child loves our school lunches and what their favourite foods/dishes are on our menus and why? There will be two prizes, for two categories. One for KS1 and and one for KS2.
The competition is open to all primary aged children attending one of our member schools.
To enter, parents and carers can:
1. Send a photo of your child's creative writing piece ( via our e-mail address)
2. E-mail directly to our e-mail address
3. Send a postal entry to the address in our T's 7 C's
Closing Date is the last day of term 22 July at 5pm.
Please state if your child is in KS1 or KS2. The winners will be chosen and notified week commencing 28 July 2025.
E-mail address - marketing@citycateringsouthampton.co.uk




How to celebrate the Jubilee with City Catering and Artswork
Celebrate the Platinum Jubilee with charities Artswork and City Catering Southampton, with an exclusive puppetry workshop from Touched Theatre, and free celebratory recipes to enjoy the Jubilee fun at home. Funded by Arts Council England’s Let Create Fund from Hampshire and Isle of Wight Community Foundation.


Partnering with Artswork to celebrate Her Majesty The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee
Exciting news! We have partnered with Artswork, another Southampton charity, and together we have been awarded funding from the Arts Council’s Let’s Create Jubilee Fund – administered by Hampshire and Isle of Wight Community Foundation (HIWCF) – to help ensure that creativity plays an important role in local community celebrations for Her Majesty The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee.



Celebrating Southampton’s City of Culture bid through school meals!
On Tuesday 15th March, participating City Catering Member Schools will have a special and exclusive UK City of Culture 2025 Bid Celebration Menu created and developed in partnership with Southampton’s local BBC MasterChef winner and Southampton 2025 bid Chair of Trustees, Shelina Permalloo.





12,000 Christmas school lunches served across Southampton!
The Christmas lunch is one of the most popular meals in the school meal calendar, and our teams delivered some incredible festive magic for Southampton school pupils this year - serving 12,202 Christmas lunches.


Our new and improved Winter School Menu, launching in November
Discover all about our new and improved Winter School Menu - launching in November. More cooking from scratch, even more vegetables, meat-free Wednesdays, recipes from our cooking at home programme and the same healthy and nutrition accreditations as always!

Government u-turns on holiday food support
Over the weekend, the Government announced in the media that they were now (despite earlier votes to not) going to support vulnerable families and children at risk of food insecurity over the winter months. We were, of course, delighted with this decision as it recognises the increased need that families are experiencing right now. It has something that we have been watching closely in recent months.

Addressing Food Insecurity in Southampton
Today, the Holiday Provision Steering Group met for their quarterly meeting; and the first opportunity this term to regroup and understand the current need in regards to family food insecurity in general, and specifically, in the school holidays for Southampton. The topic certainly has captured the nation lately, and its important for the local community for those supporting families to continue to do so with partnership.

Our response to the Free School Meal extension vote
Our response to the recent Free School Meal extension debate and vote