Food – Orchard Barns Stratford St Mary

Food At Orchard Barns, Stratford St Mary

Please find our 4 weekly menus, for Autumn – Winter 2025-2026

Nursery mealtimes

Mealtimes form a crucial part of the nursery day. Breakfast is served from 8 am until 8.45 am, and consists of cereal, fruit, yoghurt and a toast product. Snack times are 10 am and 2 pm, and the morning snack is fresh fruit, and the afternoon snack is a cracker product. Lunch is served at 11.45 in the Baby room, and 12 pm in Toddlers and Pre-school. Tea is served at 4 pm and is designed to be a ‘high tea’, which could consist of sandwiches, wraps, crumpets, and pasta bake. Our tea is a meal to tide children over, with the aim of them enjoying a family meal at home that evening. Puddings at both lunch and tea time are homemade and could consist of sugar-free cakes, fruit, yoghurt, rice pudding, and much more.

As eating habits can be created during the first few years of a child’s life and can impact eating habits in later childhood. We foster a culture for mealtimes which are calm, independent and enjoyable. The staff have the opportunity to eat with the children, demonstrating table manners and how to use cutlery. A healthy, balanced diet can contribute to a child’s overall health, skin, behaviour, weight and tooth health; therefore, our children are exposed to various different foods, flavours and textures whilst they are at nursery.

Food with the babies

At Orchard Barns, Stratford St Mary, we provide formula milk for children up to one year of age, when children most commonly begin to transfer to cows milk or alternative milks. If a parent is breastfeeding their child, this can be brought in, stored and headed safely and fed to your baby during the day. Our milk routine adapts with your child and we mirror the routine you are following at home, with regards to bottle times and amounts.

Weaning is the introduction to food alongside breast or formula milk. Within our setting, a child’s key person will work closely with parents/carers to ensure that the weaning process runs smoothly and consistently. This includes understanding the consistency of food the child can eat, and also the foods they have had at home. The babies will be sat in low-level highchairs as they begin their weaning journey and will gradually move to a child-sized chair alongside the older babies as they become independent eaters.

All babies are exposed to forks and spoons from the onset of eating food at nursery, and as they develop, are encouraged to feed themselves.

Our nursery cook

Our nursery cook, Maria, cooks the children and staff at Orchard Barns, healthy and delicious meals for lunch and tea. She is able to hide vegetables in each meal, while adding extra on the side. Fruit is added to make sugar-free cakes, and she is constantly trying to improve our menus while reducing food waste.

Maria assists in creating the menus twice a year, with seasonal food. One for Autumn and Winter, and another for Spring and Summer.

Jazybeth works during the afternoons in the kitchen and helps to prepare and serve tea. Jazybeth is a traditional family cook and enjoys cooking food from her home country in the Philippines, such as Japanese curry or Chow Mein.