Freshtoday was founded by two Wexford men, Brian McGee & Raymond Nangle. Freshtoday is Irish owned and managed and it is something we are very proud of. It ensures that we maximise the benefit for students, our employees and the communities of schools where we supply lunches. It is also a huge selling point in schools where the obvious school preference is to support Irish owned business and companies. Unfortunately, some school lunch suppliers in Ireland are now owned by UK multinationals with little or no benefiot to the local school communities.

Freshtoday meals are produced in our state of the art production facility in Enniscorthy, Co. Wexford. The meals are custom made to each individual students order and are individually labelled with the students name. The meals are then delivered to schools all over the south-east where they are cooked on site by our Freshtoday representative in that school. Once cooking is complete, the meals are delivered to each classroom in a temperature controlled container, where students can enjoy their hot meal each lunch time.

Freshtoday have the widest and most varied selection of meal options in the market. We have 12 meal options available to choose from daily. Meal options vary to cover all types of nutritional tastes and include Halal options, Coeliac options, Vegan & Vegetarian options and even options for students with sensory issues.

A general menu is available on the menu section of our website. However some schools do customise the menu to suit the student needs. Simply login to the website or app with the student login details provided and you will see the meal options available, specific to your class & school.

We update the menu twice annually to provide new meal options and also include seasonal produce. Students also look for lighter meals approaching the warmer months of April, May & June and more heartier meals coming into the winter months. We update the menu with new options at the Easter break and the October midterm each school year.

Unfortunately we are unable to provide this option, although it is something we trialled in the early stages of the school meals pilot scheme. This different sized meal portion option proved to be unworkable in production due to the volume of meals produced daily. Another aspect of this is the nutritional requirements of the scheme. Freshtoday must follow Departmental guidelines with regard to meal options and portion sizes. As nutritional requirements and portion sizes are linked, portion size is controlled to ensure nutritional values for each meal stay within guidelines.

Due to our responsibilities in provision of school lunches, we are constantly asking our suppliers to make continual progress in their business practices. They are doing this in the following ways:
• Sustainable agriculture practices
• Reduction in plastic packaging & increasing compostable packaging
• Responsible sourcing from Irish suppliers
• Using organic, Fairtrade and sustainably sourced products
• Using Foodcloud to donate surplus food product
• Becoming members of Origin Green, Ireland’s food sustainability programme.
• Reducing waste to landfill
• Introduction of electric vehicles to the fleet.

Where possible Freshtoday always try and source meat and food products from Irish suppliers. This is not always possible due to a number of factors however regardless of the country of production, we always try and procure products through Irish companies. Beef & pork are both sourced in Ireland. Chicken & Turkey is sourced in the EU. Please note that any food product imported into the EU must adhere to the strictest food safety regulations in the world.

As part of our ongoing efforts to reduce our environmental impact, we use specialized software to optimize delivery routes, ensuring our drivers deliver to the most efficient school locations first. Our Radius Telematics transport control system provides our Transport management team all the data they need to ensure the most efficient route optimization to deliver school lunches safely and efficiently. This reduces fuel consumption; time spent on the road and lowers emissions even further. Driver behaviour is also monitored at all times by our telematics system and an overall driver score is generated daily based on their performance. Performance indicators include harsh braking, harsh acceleration, harsh cornering and speeding. At the end of each month we reward the driver with the best performance with a gift, in recognition of their dedication to the role.

You cannot cancel the lunch order via the website or Freshtoday app. The lunch can only be cancelled by emailing Freshtoday Customer Support.

Yes Freshtoday has some meals on the menu that do not contain any allergens whatsoever. In addition to that, when our Head Chef and the meal development team create meal options, they always try and select ingredients with as few allergens as possible. However we also have to strike a balance in this process as sometimes the ingredients with fewer allergens can be less flavoursome or tasty. We factor all these considerations to provide the tastiest, lowest allergen meal options for the menu.

All our meals are produced in our state of the art production facility in Enniscorthy, Co. Wexford in a very tightly controlled production process. We have microbiological testing of swabs on file to verify our allergen cross contamination and cleaning processes. These tests are carried out at regular intervals to constantly verify our processes. The tests are conducted by ALS Life Sciences Laboratory in Clonmel, which is an internationally accredited laboratory.

Please go to the nutrition section of our website and click on the image of any meal. This will open up a technical document proving all the information required on the meal you would like to order.

ISO accrediations are internationally recognised in over 180 countries worldwide in comparison to awards like Q Mark what are only recognised nationally, in Ireland. Therefore our ISO 22000 and ISO 140001 would allow us to provide school lunches in China, if we wanted to expand our operations there! In contrast, the Q Mark award which some of our competitors hold is not recognised outside Ireland.

Freshtoday is subject to regular food safety audits in all our schools and production facilities. The HSE & EHO (Environmental Health Officer) audit Freshtoday at least once annually. We are also subject to regular audits from NSAI to maintain our international ISO 22000 and ISO 14001 accreditations.

Freshtoday produces all our lunches in our 25,000 square feet production facility in Enniscorthy, Co. Wexford. This production facility has been specifically set up for production of lunches in the school meals scheme. We have invested millions of euro in state of the art automation and customised production systems. These systems track every product entering into our production facility right through the production process. Our systems also generate multiple production & traceability reports, right through to delivery in your school.

Freshtoday completely specialise in school meals provision & service, we do not cater for outside catering events or parties unfortunately.

A spork is a multipurpose eating utensil that combines the bowl of a spoon with the tines of a fork. Therefore it doubles as both a spoon and fork in one utensil. We supply this cleverly designed utensil to minimise waste and ensure that only one utensil is provided to each student daily, rather than two, as we are conscious ogf our environmental footprint.

The hot meal packaging is recyclable. All Freshtoday food packaging must be certified food grade in compliance with EC Regulation No. 1935/2004. The EU has the strictest regulations and legislation in the world around food and food grade packaging.

We have recently trialled compostable packaging for hot meals in schools. Unfortunately the packaging breaks down and allows moisture to seep through onto school desks. The lining in the compostable version to remove the plastic is manufactured from a compostable bees wax. However the beeswax is not durable enough to withstand the refrigeration & cook process.

There is a lot of confusion over compostable and biodegradable packaging. Biodegradeable packaging is packaging that breaks down naturally after being exposed by microorganism. For example, if you are driving down the road and you throw a biodegradable package into the ditch, in 12-15 weeks the package will have decomposed. Biodegradable packaging is either very difficult to source or is no longer available on the market, due to a shortage of the raw materials required and the costs involved.

Compostable packaging is very similar to biodegradeable packaging with one key difference, its can only decompose once treated in an industrial treatment centre. Therefore for compostable packaging to live up to its full potential, it is required to be collected and delivered to a special waste treatment centre that when treated, it will break down organically. Unfortunately, the country only has about 6 of these treatment centres. Dublin has 4, Cork has one and Limerick has one.

That would totally depend on where you live and where the packaging will be treated or recycled. If you live in rural areas where a specialised treatment centre is not yet in place, then recyclable packaging is the correct and best packaging option to use. Compostable packaging is only the best option if you live in Dublin, Cork or Limerick city and surrounding areas. You also need to ensure that the compostable packaging goes to the correct treatment centre. If compostable packaging is not treated at a specific facility, it will not break down. There is currently a move away from compostable packaging in Ireland, ewe simply do not have the infrastructure in place to handle it correctly after use.

Freshtoday are a proud member of REPAK – since 1997, Irish businesses like ourselves have invested over €400 million through Repak in supporting packaging recycling in Ireland. Through this investment, Repak has helped to grow packaging recycling and recovery from under 15% in 1997 to 90% in 2016.

Repak is an environmental not-for-profit organisation with a social mission. Our purpose, on behalf of our Members, is to lead the recycling and sustainability of Ireland’s packaging, advocate for a new circular economy and educate businesses and consumers on reducing and recycling packaging waste. Repak was set up in 1997 to help our Member businesses meet their legal obligation to recycle the packaging they place on the Irish market. We now have over 3,500 Members, whose fees fund household recycling bins, bottle banks, civic amenities and business back-door packaging waste nationwide.

In 2022, we purchased our first fully electric vehicle for the fleet. We keep our fleet updated regularly and purchase on average six new vans every year. Due to this purchasing policy, we have the lowest emission vehicles available on the market. These vehicles are strategically routed to ensure there is limited environmental impact while delivering our quality lunches. As we are centrally located in the south-east, we are ideally situated to service schools in Carlow, Kilkenny, Waterford, Wexford & Wicklow.

Since 2015, we have made it our mission to reduce waste to landfill. We have installed balers for handling cardboard and plastic waste streams in our production facility. We now bale all our plastic and cardboard for recycling. Food waste is segregated and delivered to a registered food composting facility in Ballyshannon, Co. Wexford.

Yes, we are very excited to bring a tailored nutritional workshop for children on the spectrum using a sensory based, low volume activity session ensuring all students are having fun learning about nutrition and healthy lifestyles!

We offer environmental talks to classes targeting the environment and how Freshtoday are being proactive in tackling environmental challenges. Students are challenged on their knowledge with token prizes awarded to those that can provide answers to environmental questions posed!

These talks have gone down very well in schools and are an innovative way of getting students
interested and involved in what can sometimes be a technical and tedious subject.

At Freshtoday we have a fantastic Brand Amabassador Program that are willing to visit your school and pass on their knowledge from their successful careers! Freshtoday amabassadors visit schools with scheduled workshops in an effort to educate and motivate children into healthy and active lifestyles. Some of our ambassadors include:

• Adrian Mullen, Kilkenny Hurler
• Amy Adams, Nutrition Workshop
• Anais Curran, Wexford Camogie
• Austin Gleeson, Waterford Hurler
• DJ CianO, Professional DJ
• Kevin Dundon, Celebrity Chef
• Kiara Donegan, Nutrition Workshops
• Michael Fennelly, Leadership Workshop