Call for Tenders for the Provision of Hot School Meals to Scoil Roisín

AI-generated analysis of the documents. Check the official notice and any amendments for current submission details.

1. At a glance

2. Scope of Work

This tender seeks a contractor to provide hot school meals to Scoil Roisín under the Department of Social Protection’s School Meals Scheme. The service will operate for 182 days per year. The estimated value of the contract is €85,612.80. The contractor will be responsible for the end-to-end delivery of hot meals, from preparation to distribution to students.

Key activities and requirements include:

• Meal Provision: Supplying hot meals daily to students. The school operates 182 days per year, and the contractor must provide service on each of these days, barring exceptional circumstances.
• Food Ordering System: Implementing a system (app, website, email) for ordering and adjusting meals. This system must detail ordering procedures and time limits for changes. Imagery of the ordering system is required.
• Food Service: Managing the distribution of meals to students, including individual packaging and labelling. Provision of cutlery and napkins is also required. Imagery of individual packaging and labelling must be provided.
• Food Plan and Standards: Developing and adhering to a food plan that provides fresh, healthy, and nutritious food, with consistent variation. The plan must accommodate dietary needs including lactose-free, gluten-free, vegetarian, vegan, and halal options, catering to students with food intolerances, allergies, and religious observances. The plan must be available daily, weekly, and seasonally.
• Food Quality and Safety: Ensuring high standards of food quality, freshness, and preservation of nutritional content. Measures to mitigate menu fatigue are required.
• Temperature Control: Maintaining correct food temperatures in compliance with food legislation from delivery to serving.
• Cross-Contamination Prevention: Implementing procedures to avoid cross-contamination, particularly concerning food allergies and intolerances.
• Contract Management: Assigning a Key Account Manager (KAM) with proven experience in similar roles to oversee service delivery. CVs for the KAM and a nominated backup KAM (max 2 A4 pages each) are required.
• Complaint/Incident Management: Establishing a clear process for managing and resolving complaints and incidents, including product recalls, food contamination, customer complaints, medical incidents (foodborne illness, allergies, poisoning), and food quality issues. The Service Level Agreement (SLA) in Schedule D of the Services Contract is relevant.
• Staff Resourcing: Ensuring continuous resourcing with skilled, knowledgeable, experienced, and trained individuals. This includes managing resources for quality and continuity, staff training, and succession planning for resource losses or leave.
• Green Procurement and Sustainability: Implementing waste minimisation and waste management plans, with a focus on food waste reduction (aligned with Ireland's commitment to reduce food waste by 50% by 2030). Use of environmentally friendly, recyclable, compostable, or biodegradable packaging materials is required, along with a commitment to reducing plastics. A sustainable purchasing policy favouring local, seasonal produce and waste-minimising suppliers is also mandated.
• Organic Food Requirement: A minimum of 10% by value (€) of the food supplied must be certified organic in each of the specified categories.

The contract is for the provision of hot school meals under the Department of Social Protection's School Meals Scheme.

3. Background & buyer context

Scoil Roisín is procuring hot school meals as part of the Department of Social Protection’s School Meals Scheme. This initiative aims to provide nutritional meals to students. The procurement is being conducted under an Open Procedure, indicating a competitive tendering process. The school is located at Saltpans, Dungloe, Letterkenny, Co. Donegal. The tender documents do not specify a particular programme or policy driver beyond the existing School Meals Scheme. No incumbent provider is explicitly named in the provided documentation.

4. Eligibility & selection criteria

Bidders must meet the following criteria to be considered:

• Turnover requirement:
• Minimum average annual turnover of €28,537.60 for each of the three financial years preceding the tender publication date.
• If submitting as a consortium, this requirement can be met by the combined turnover of members.
• Audited financial statements with an unqualified audit report for the last three years are required. Alternative documentation may be accepted if a valid reason for not providing financial statements is given.
• Insurance: The successful tenderer must hold the following insurances for the contract term:
• Employer’s Liability: €13 million limit per claim or series of claims arising from a single occurrence.
• Public Liability: €6.5 million limit per claim or series of claims arising from a single occurrence per insurance period.
• Product Liability: €6.5 million limit per claim and in aggregate per insurance period.
• Motor Cover: Minimum €1.3 million limit for third-party property damage per accident.
• Crime Insurance: €100,000 per claim.
• Cyber Liability: €1 million per claim and in aggregate per insurance policy year.
• Professional Indemnity: €6.5 million limit per claim or series of claims arising from a single occurrence per insurance period (only relevant for Service Delivery Models 2, 3, or 4 involving fit-out or alterations).
• Employer’s Liability, Public Liability, and Product Liability policies must include an indemnity to principal’s clause.
• Certifications:
• Registered as a Food Business Operator (FBO) with the HSE, local authority, or DAFM. A copy of the acknowledgement of notification or approval certificate is required.
• Past experience:
• A minimum of three previous contract examples (public or private sector) within the last three years.
• These contracts must be for hot catering services of a similar nature, scale, and value.
• Collectively, the examples must demonstrate an average of 60% or more of the number of meals required in this tender.
• Client references for each of the three contract examples are required.
• Personnel:
• Key Account Manager (KAM) must have proven experience in successfully delivering services of a similar scope and scale. CVs (max 2 A4 pages) are required for the KAM and a backup KAM.
• Geographic / facility constraints: Not specified.

5. Award criteria & scoring

The contract will be awarded based on a combination of qualitative assessment and price. The total available marks are 1,000.

Criterion Weight (%) Sub-criteria