nursery business
D
Invite parents for lunch occasionally, so
they can see the quality of your food.
D
Share your food provenance
through notice boards, newsletters and
social media.
D
If you buy from local producers,
engage with some cross-marketing to
help both businesses.
D
Share your most popular recipes with
parents to cook at home.
D
Offer master-classes for parents to get
top tips on feeding their children from
your cook.
The ways to celebrate excellence and
attention to detail in your food are
endless – just be creative. Without a
doubt, if your food is right it’s the perfect
vehicle to get mums and dads talking
about your nursery for all the right
reasons – and that is marketing that
you can’t afford to ignore.
If you want to find
out more about
free early years
food and nutrition
resources or
bespoke training and nutritional
support, contact Nigel Denby RD,
Grub4Life’s Head of Nutrition, at
EXPERT SUPPORT
A PARTNERSHIP WITH ANNABEL KARMEL
IS BOOSTING FENNIES DAY NURSERIES’
BUSINESS, AS DIRECTOR OF CHILDCARE
SERVICES, JOHN WARREN, EXPLAINED...
WHY DID YOU APPROACH ANNABEL TO WORK WITH FENNIES?
JW:
Over the last 30 years I’ve witnessed at first hand how important
our food is to parents. In the past I’d contacted many nutritionists with a
view to developing our food offering, but although their knowledge was
excellent, they couldn’t provide the package we wanted.
This led me to think about who in the sector was trusted and could
help us. When my children were little they were brought up on Annabel
Karmel’s recipes; I knew that if we could convince Annabel to join us
it would be a huge investment, but that having such a name attached
to Fennies would pay for itself in terms of the quality of our food and
increased occupancy levels.
HOW DID THE PARTNERSHIP DEVELOP?
JW:
After many conversations with Annabel’s PA we agreed a meeting
and started developing our programme. Initially our MD asked if we could
just create menus using Annabel’s many cookery books, but we needed
a hook to draw people in. I know that many people with an early years
head on find marketing difficult, but I believe the most important thing
before you try to sell your product is to believe in your product – and our
product is high-quality childcare and education.
There were two main aspects to talk about: the menus Annabel
would provide and the help she would give us as an added tool for
marketing our nurseries. Discussions and work for both ran parallel to
each other. Our head chef worked with Annabel to develop the menus,
and then our external marketing team at Shooting Star PR worked with
her team to develop the programme. Once contracts were signed we let
our parents know what would be happening and when. Managers were
instructed to feed this news into every subsequent ‘show round’ visit, and
as the investment was high we sent in secret shoppers to ensure that
they were doing just that.
HOWARE THINGS GOING, ANDWHAT ARE YOUR FUTURE PLANS?
JW:
Now the programme is up and running recipes are being shared
with parents, and Annabel has complete buy-in from Fennies. At our
recent Day of Excellence she spoke to staff and spent time with the chefs
helping to prepare the meal on the day for 200 people. There are
plans for Annabel to attend open days for prospective
parents, and we are currently in discussion with a
training provider to upskill our chefs.
The investment in money, time and effort
has been immense for us, but the outcome
for the health and wellbeing of our children,
and the benefits in attracting and retaining
parents, will I’m sure outweigh the cost.
We factored in at the start how many new
families we would need to attract to cover the
investment – the target was a manageable one
and, we feel, worth the risk.
Visit fennies.com
earlyyears.teachwire.net
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