Karen McQuade: How I made a million from school dinners

Not many people have fond memories of school dinners. Yet to Karen McQuade and Robert Clark, co-founders of The UK Foodhall, they represented a huge business opportunity.

Not many people have fond memories of school dinners. Yet to Karen McQuade and Robert Clark, co-founders of The UK Foodhall, they represented a huge business opportunity. Around 90% of the meat used in school dinners was imported. The pair decided there had to be a niche for a company that only provided British products. After all, "the local authorities who buy the food were always telling us they would prefer to buy British", recalls McQuade. Aside from the appeal of 'localism', "if there is a problem with a chicken imported from Bangkok, it's hard to discuss it with the supplier".

But there were strong commercial reasons for the glut of imported meat. "Foreign food was much cheaper", for one. Perhaps more surprisingly, British food-processing plants didn't have the equipment to make "chicken portions suitable for children". Because chickens vary in size and shape, mass-producing pieces that fulfil recommended nutritional guidelines for children is quite "tricky", explains McQuade. So she tracked down the makers of the specialist food-processing equipment needed, and asked them to let her know should a British firm buy any of this machinery.

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James McKeigue

James graduated from Keele University with a BA (Hons) in English literature and history, and has a certificate in journalism from the NCTJ. James has worked as a freelance journalist in various Latin American countries.He also had a spell at ITV, as welll as wring for Television Business International and covering the European equity markets for the Forbes.com London bureau. James has travelled extensively in emerging markets, reporting for international energy magazines such as Oil and Gas Investor, and institutional publications such as the Commonwealth Business Environment Report. He is currently the managing editor of LatAm INVESTOR, the UK's only Latin American finance magazine.