The Edinburgh Academy

The Edinburgh Academy

An innovative food experience for young minds and bodies

The Edinburgh Academy is a modern, exciting, vibrant co-educational school for 2 to 18 year olds. With two school sites near the centre of Edinburgh, it’s held true since it was founded in 1824 to its motto of ‘Always Excel’, helping pupils to unlock their potential by supporting a focus on wellbeing and character development.

For over 25 years Sodexo has worked to provide an outstanding catering service to all the students, with meals provided to nursey, junior and senior schools. Our well-established team understands the important role they have at this Health Promoting School to encourage healthy eating habits that keep students of all ages nourished and excited about freshly prepared food sourced from across Scotland.



Of all of the catering and cleaning companies I have dealt with in schools, Sodexo offers the best customer care whilst ensuring that no corners are cut regarding quality.

Gavin Calder ,
Headmaster at The Edinburgh Academy

A flexible food experience

For junior school students, we know how important it is to give them the flexibility to eat well and have choice. To get them involved in making good food choices, they enjoy a set first course that we know will keep them full, but once they’ve finished they have the freedom to walk up and choose from a wide range of colourful, freshly prepared sliced vegetables and fruits for an extra nutritional boost.

For senior students, our good working relationship with them and their teachers has enabled us to introduce a regular fun Friday theme menu that becomes the talk of the day. Whether it’s a Mexicana or Pasta Day or Fish and Chips, our team seems to have as much fun preparing the delights as the students have eating them!

Making it local

We've taken the initiative in making the food experience special by bringing our local suppliers to the school. This sees the junior school enjoy visits from our fish and fresh vegetable suppliers where they get to see the range of sustainably sourced fish we use and array of vegetables grown across Scotland that goes into many of their meals.

A hub of innovation

We’ve had the pleasure to work in a firm partnership with the Edinburgh Academy for many years. This gives us a strong understanding of the school’s ethos and how we can reflect this in modern menus and food concepts.

It’s through the partnership approach that we’ve used our expertise and leadership in catering to young people by refreshing menus for the nursery, junior and senior schools. This has kept choices up to date with current nutritional advice and presentation on-trend, comparing very well with what can be seen on the high street and meeting an expectation for outstanding food choices. We’ve also been very pleased to engage with pupils to remove all single use plastic cups and cutlery and we’re continually reducing our use of plastic packaging.

By providing such a modern and convenient level of service to the students, we’re delighted that our team at the Edinburgh Academy is distinguished as one of Independents by Sodexo’s innovation hubs. Our chefs and managers from across the UK often visit to be inspired by the student food experience our team is creating in the sector.

We'd be delighted to talk about your school’s requirements.
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