Martin High School, which sits just outside of Leicester in the rural and picturesque town of Anstey, is at the very centre of the community. Today, there are nearly 800 students on the school’s register aged between 11-16 years old all striving to achieve their goals, and helping one another to do so.  With a school ethos of ‘Inspiring to dream more, learn more, do more and become more’ it’s clear to see that the pupils are embracing these values.
At the heart of this bustling secondary school, is the catering department. A kitchen that had once resembled something more akin to the 1950’s – including original oven ranges – is now the home to a brand new, refurbished kitchen complete with all new equipment, a new layout design and even a new uniform for the catering staff.
Lisa Sharma, Catering Manager at Martin High School has been leading the catering team for four years and has been the driving force in achieving the CIF Bid, which allowed them to finally replace the original 1950’s kitchen over the summer holidays in 2017. This huge step forward for the school, as Lisa explains, was absolutely crucial in finally being able to provide the type of menu offering Lisa and her team longed to give the children:
“Secondary school children are at that age where their tastes are constantly changing and we need to provide enough lunchtime options that will suit both new first years who will be used to a much more regimented primary school menu and the more adult tastes of a 16 year old who will often prefer a more savoury meal. We provide them with a huge range of breakfast, break time and lunchtime meal options because it’s important that no pupil goes hungry. We try to give them filling meals because when they are playing sport, studying and growing they’re using a lot energy so they’ll need that fuel to get them through the day.”
But, until the start of the new school year in September 2017 when Lisa walked into her brand new modern kitchen for the first time, achieving this was a near impossibility:
“Before the refurb, we had a range oven which was completely hit and miss – the only items we could put in there were the cookies and cakes and even then we could only rely on the middle shelf cooking these items to an acceptable quality. The door of the old oven had to be propped open too, it was horrendous. I used to get to the kitchen at half 6 in the morning because it was the only way we could get all of the food through the oven in time to serve the children. It was incredibly frustrating knowing that we wouldn’t be able to put on the menus that we really wanted to for the kids because of how limited we were.”
Luckily for Lisa and her team, they were awarded the CIF Bid which would allow them to finally turn their whole catering operation around. As a part of this refurb, Martin High School purchased three Convotherm 4 easyDial combi steamers:
“Initially we thought we would only have the one Convotherm combi steamer but due to the amount of meals we have to produce per day we decided that actually, we needed multiple ovens if we were going to make our catering provision a real success. It was an obvious decision for us to choose the same brand of oven as the one we had initially selected. When I look back now, I don’t know how we managed without them, they have completely changed the way we cook. The fact that we can put food on any shelf and it come out perfectly cooked is a real novelty for us, which tells you just how bad it was prior the ovens being installed.”
Even the simplest items, such as chocolate chip cookies, were previously a struggle to cook using the old oven that was in place:
“Whereas before I had to cook 16 trays of cookies in one oven where only two trays could fit and only one of the oven’s shelves could be used, now I can bake the cookies in one of the Convotherm ovens in just two batches, they’re done in 10 minutes and they’re perfect. I couldn’t believe it really when we first started using them – it meant that I no longer had to start baking them form 6.30am right up until service at 8.30am! That alone has made a massive difference, not to mention that we can then use the Convotherm to cook plenty of other items once the cookies are done.”
Now, with the three Convotherm’s in place, Lisa can provide the pupils with a whole host of different menu items daily, without having to worry about the finished quality of the food or precise timings for every item to be cooked:
“Since we’ve had the three Convotherm’s, we have been able to expand our menus hugely! We now offer a hot deli and a range of hot break time snacks like sausage rolls, bacon turn overs and hash browns which we can put in the Convotherm together knowing that each item will come out cooked to perfection, whereas with our old oven we could never tell just how any dish would come out. The Convotherm ovens allow us to cook so many different dishes, from pasta sauces, curries and roast beef to sponge cakes, steamed puddings and cookies! Because we can cook so many different types of food, we are now able to offer the pupils the amount of choice that we have always wanted to.
Another real benefit is that they are fitted with a temperature probe. This is so handy when we’re cooking meat for roasts or breaded chicken fillets for example, as I can set the temperature on the Convotherm and use the in-built probe to check the temperature of the meat regularly. It just keeps it all within one area when we’re cooking instead of hunting around the kitchen to find the probe!”
Not only do the three Convotherm combi steamers have an impact on the variety and quality of the food, but they have greatly improved the working environment for the staff:
“After an incredibly hectic morning and lunchtime period of prep, cooking and serving the last thing we wanted to do was to take the shelves out of the oven and scrub them but that’s what we would have to do. It would take ages to scrub them by hand and it really was one of the worst jobs. As you can imagine, we were absolutely over the moon to hear that our new Convotherm ovens had fully automatic cleaning! All we have to do is put the three ovens onto a full cleaning cycle and we’re pretty much done – no more having to sit for hours and scrub which is absolutely amazing.”
For staff, the refurbishment has certainly been wholeheartedly welcomed and the addition of three new Convotherm combi steamers have allowed Lisa and her team to serve a huge variety of delicious food whilst keeping the kitchen a stress free environment:
“The environment is far less chaotic and every team member is much more at ease at work. One thing that has really helped is that once we had a training day with the Welbilt development chef, we realised just how easy they were to use. When they were first installed we were all a bit apprehensive because they weren’t what we were used to, but now everyone in the kitchen can use them with no issues. I’d highly recommend Convotherm, they’re just perfect – I look back now and have no idea how we coped without them!”