The Steel SpoonThe Steel Spoon
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About us

Real food, cooked fresh, for the youngest appetites

The Steel Spoon is a Sheffield early years catering company. We cook nutritious meals every day and deliver them hot to nurseries, pre-schools and other early years settings across England, so your team can spend its time with the children instead of in the kitchen.

Talk to our teamSee how it works
Our story

From a Sheffield kitchen to nurseries across England

Before university, I worked as a head chef, and cooking has been my passion for as long as I can remember. Years later, studying for a second degree in Sheffield, I found myself missing the kitchen. So I started meal prepping for local families and members of the community around S10, cooking real food for real people from my own doorstep.

Then a local nursery in Sheffield asked for help. They needed proper, freshly cooked meals for the children, and I said yes. It went well, and word spread quickly from one setting to the next. What began as a way to keep cooking alongside my studies, and to help cover the cost of my own unexpected, unfunded tuition fees, turned into something much bigger. We outgrew one kitchen, then another, moving into larger and larger spaces as more settings joined us.

Today The Steel Spoon cooks for nurseries and early years settings across England. We have grown, but we still run it like that first nursery kitchen: fresh food, cooked properly, delivered on time by people who care.

Dylan Pace
Founder, The Steel Spoon

Sheffield · S10
Meet Dylan, founder and head chef. Yes, that’s a cuppa first.
What we do

Hot, balanced meals, whenever you need them

Settings range from a childminder who needs a handful of meals to a large nursery serving well over a hundred children. There are no daily minimums.

Daily lunches and teas

Freshly cooked main meals, with a vegetarian alternative and dessert or a light tea if you want a full day covered.

Partnership

A rolling monthly arrangement for settings that want dependable catering without a long contract.

Short-term and emergency cover

Cover for staff sickness, a kitchen out of action, or planned leave, so children are fed properly while you sort things out. Find out more.

Special occasions

Menus for celebrations such as Eid, Christmas, summer parties and graduations.

Food and nutrition

Designed around the national early years guidance

Our menus are designed around the Department for Education's Early Years Foundation Stage nutrition guidance (May 2025), which settings in England must have regard to from September 2025.

That guidance asks for meals built from four food groups: fruit and vegetables; starchy foods such as potatoes, bread, rice and pasta; dairy or dairy alternatives; and beans, pulses, fish, eggs, meat and other proteins. It also asks for at least one portion of vegetables or fruit at every main meal, limited processed meat, and sugary and high-salt foods kept to a minimum, with water available throughout the day.

We cook from scratch, build in plenty of colour and keep recipes sugar-free. Settings choose from a library of more than 350 recipes and build their own rotating menu, so children get variety and your team knows exactly what is coming. Browse our menus.

Dietary needs are never an afterthought. Every dietary alternative is like-for-like with the main dish, free of charge and individually sealed and labelled, so a child with an allergy or special diet sits down to the same meal as their friends.

Safety and compliance

Safe for every child, and ready for every inspection

Feeding young children carries a responsibility that we take seriously, and we make it easy for you to prove it to inspectors.

Allergen labelling

Every meal is labelled with the 14 major allergens highlighted, in line with the rules known as Natasha’s Law, which have applied to food prepared and packed for direct sale since 1 October 2021 (Allergy UK).

Separate preparation

Special-diet meals are prepared in a segregated, double-checked area to keep them apart from everything else.

Temperature records

Meals travel in thermal containers, and your staff log the delivery temperature in our app. The records are digital and ready when you need them.

Inspection-ready

Our approved food premises status and a downloadable audit pack support Ofsted and environmental health visits. See Ofsted & compliance.

You enter allergy details and quantities in the app, so the right meals arrive labelled for the right child.

How it works

Built around a nursery’s day, not ours

  1. You set your menu and numbers

    Choose from our recipes, build a rotating menu and tell us your portions. You can order ahead and adjust on the morning before the cut-off.

  2. We cook in our own approved kitchens

    Meals are made fresh, with dietary alternatives prepared separately and labelled.

  3. We deliver at your lunchtime

    Our logistics partner, City Sprint, handles transport using DBS-checked drivers, with routes planned around each setting’s lunch. Where a delivery needs a room-by-room split, we can send trays divided by room.

  4. You log and serve

    Your team records the delivery temperature in the app, and every record is saved for inspection.

Our own technology. Settings order, track and manage everything in our online portal, from menus and allergy information to invoices and the audit pack. We built it ourselves, so it does what nurseries actually need. Take a look at the app.

Farm to Plate. Each setting gets its own short video following its meal from the farm to our kitchen, then to your door in a Steel Spoon van, finishing with the Lunch Song. Children love it, and parents see exactly where lunch comes from.

Why nurseries choose us

Less to run, more time with the children

Less to run

No cook to cover, no allergen paperwork to compile and no deliveries to chase.

Safer for every child

Like-for-like dietary meals, clear allergen labelling and separate preparation.

Inspection-ready

Temperature logs, menus and an audit pack in one place.

Flexible

No daily minimums, a rolling monthly Partnership and cover when you need it at short notice.

Food children remember

Fresh, colourful meals and a Farm to Plate video made for your setting.

Our promise

We run The Steel Spoon the way we would want our own children’s nursery to be fed: honestly, safely and on time. If something is not right, we want to hear about it and we will put it right.

Where we deliver, and where we’re going

We deliver across all of England. We are growing city by city, with the same standard in every kitchen and every delivery, so a new nursery gets the same care as the first one we ever cooked for.

Set up online

Choose your package and menu, sign your agreement and book a kickoff call in about 5 minutes.

Start online setup

Talk to a person first

Whether you need daily lunches, a Partnership or cover for the next few weeks, we will set up a trial that fits your setting.

Send an enquiryCall 0114 437 1218