Provision of Hot Meals under the School Meals Scheme

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1. At a glance

2. Scope of Work

This tender seeks a contractor to provide hot meals under the School Meals Scheme to Scoil Naomh Sheosaimh. The contract will cover the provision of these meals for the school's 182 operational days per year. The estimated value of the contract is €169,478.40 over an unspecified term, with an annual value of €56,492.80.

The core activities for the successful tenderer include:

• Meal Provision: Delivering hot meals that meet specified nutrition standards. The service delivery model is specified as "Meals Pre-Prepared Off-Site and Delivered" or "Meals Pre-Prepared Off-Site and Heated in the School".
• Ordering System: Implementing and managing a food ordering system (app, website, email) allowing for meal orders and adjustments. This system must include clear ordering deadlines. Imagery of the ordering system is required.
• Food Service: Ensuring individual packaging, labelling, and provision of cutlery and napkins. Imagery of individual packaging and labelling is required.
• Food Plan and Standards: Developing and maintaining a food plan that offers fresh, healthy, and nutritious meals. This plan must be varied, changeable, and accommodate dietary needs including intolerances, allergies, and religious observances (lactose-free, gluten-free, vegetarian, vegan, halal). The plan must be available daily, weekly, and seasonally.
• Food Quality and Safety: Maintaining high standards of food quality, freshness, and nutritional content. This includes ensuring correct food temperatures from delivery to serving, complying with food legislation, and mitigating menu fatigue.
• Cross-Contamination Prevention: Implementing measures to avoid food cross-contamination, particularly for allergies and intolerances.
• Contract Management: Assigning a Key Account Manager (KAM) responsible for service delivery. A CV for the KAM and a nominated backup KAM (max 2 A4 pages each) is required.
• Complaint/Incident Management: Establishing a process for managing and resolving complaints and incidents, including product recalls, food contamination, customer complaints, medical incidents (foodborne illness, allergies), and food quality issues.
• Staff Resourcing: Ensuring continuous resourcing with skilled, knowledgeable, and trained personnel. This includes managing resources for quality and continuity, providing ongoing training, and implementing succession planning.
• Waste Minimisation and Management: Detailing an approach to minimise all waste, with a focus on food waste prevention and reducing plastics/non-recyclable packaging. A waste management plan for daily collection of food waste, packaging, and pest control is required.
• Sustainable Purchasing: Describing how the purchasing policy contributes to environmental and social sustainability, including waste minimisation in purchasing decisions, favouring local/seasonal produce, and reducing transport miles.

The school operates for 182 days per year, and the contractor must provide service on each of these days, barring exceptional circumstances.

3. Background & buyer context

Scoil Naomh Sheosaimh is procuring catering services under the Department of Social Protection’s School Meals Scheme. This scheme aims to provide nutritious meals to students attending schools in disadvantaged areas. The procurement is being conducted as an Open Procedure, indicating a desire to source services from the wider market. The estimated contract value falls below the EU procurement threshold of €750,000, allowing for a simplified procedure under Irish regulations. The school is located in Toomevara, Nenagh, Co. Tipperary. No incumbent provider is explicitly mentioned.

4. Eligibility & selection criteria

To be considered for this tender, bidders must meet the following mandatory selection criteria:

• Turnover requirement: A minimum average annual turnover of €56,492.80 for each of the three financial years immediately preceding the tender publication date. For consortia, this can be a combined turnover.
• Insurance: The successful tenderer must hold the following insurances for the contract term:
• Employer’s Liability: €13 million limit per claim.
• Public Liability: €6.5 million limit per claim.
• Product Liability: €6.5 million limit per claim and in aggregate.
• Motor Cover: Minimum €1.3 million for third-party property damage per accident.
• Crime Insurance: €100,000 per claim.
• Cyber Liability: €1 million per claim and in aggregate.
• Professional Indemnity: €6.5 million limit per claim (only if Service Delivery Models 2, 3, or 4 are used, which is not the case here as Model 1 is specified).
• Certifications: Tenderers must be registered as Food Business Operators (FBOs) with the relevant competent authority (HSE, local authority, or DAFM).
• Past experience: Demonstration of successful delivery of three previous hot meal contracts (public or private sector) within the last three years. Each contract must have been:
• Nature: A hot food contract.
• Scale: Averaged at least 60% of the number of meals required in this competition.
• Value: At least 60% of the value of this competition.
• A satisfactory written reference from a referee for each contract is also required.
• Personnel: A Key Account Manager (KAM) with proven experience in similar roles is required. CVs for the KAM and a backup KAM (max 2 A4 pages each) must be submitted. The KAM must hold a Food Safety/HACCP qualification and have a minimum of 2 years' experience in a similar role.
• Geographic / facility constraints: Not specified.

5. Award criteria & scoring

The contract will be awarded based on a combination of quality and price. A total of 1,000 marks are available for qualitative assessment. The price component is not explicitly scored but will be considered in the overall award decision. Tenderers must achieve a minimum score of 70% in specific sub-criteria to avoid elimination.

Criterion Weight (%) Sub-criteria