The school meals service provided by Cambridgeshire County Council has won a top national award for its marketing.

Cambridgeshire Catering and Cleaning Services (CCS) won the Cost Sector Catering Marketing Award at a special ceremony at the Hilton Metropole Hotel in London. .

Richard Ware joined the County Council as Head of CCS in November 2007, when he immediately developed a marketing strategy for the service, which had seen a decline in the take-up of school meals in line with national trends.

He created a marketing strategy that would eliminate the deficit and provide a secure financial future for CCS. The main objectives included increasing take-up of meals by 10 a day for three years at every school in Cambridgeshire.

He also identified a need to provide marketing support for schools individually, rather than using a blanket approach for all of them.

Richard said: "I wanted to use a combination of traditional marketing and new, digital techniques to increase awareness of CCS's websites and provide more information for parents and students. This has proved hugely successful, as parents can now go online and offer suggestions for future menus. Pupils are also using the website as part of lessons to learn more about food. The award reflects the effectiveness and success of this strategy."