School trends for 2025: the future of school operations

Innovative new technology is transforming education faster than ever before. As the new year begins, we'll help you navigate the changing landscape of school catering to prepare for success.

The top trends to watch in 2025

The growth of grab-and-go meals

Grab-and-go meal options have become integral to many secondary school canteens, with lunchtimes squeezed and students' eating habits changing. Industry experts, IGD, project that the UK's food-to-go market will grow by over 20% to £29.12 billion by 2028. As students seek more flexible lunch options, school caterers will benefit from expanding their grab-and-go meal offerings to include:

Varied handheld food items: hot and cold sandwiches, buns, wraps, and burritos.
Conveniently packaged mains, such as salads, rice, noodles and pasta pots.
Portable, healthy, sweet treats like fruit salads, yoghurts and smoothie bowls.
Schools should offer a grab-and-go meal service, reducing queues and wait times by utilising the latest mobile and on-site ordering technologies and assigning designated collection points.

Modern meal-ordering experiences

Today's students are empowered young consumers with well-informed purchasing preferences. Nearly a third of UK children use online food delivery services weekly, and two-thirds of Gen Z prefer using self-service restaurant kiosks to ordering at the till. Leading schools are embracing students' preferences by bringing popular, tech-forward purchasing experiences into the dining hall, offering students:

A new school food service model inspired by popular restaurants and supermarkets.
A modern pre-ordering experience with a sleek mobile app.
Intuitive Self-Serve Kiosks for an easy, independent self-service meal ordering experience.

For practical insights on implementing a modern grab-and-go meal service with tried-and-tested, nutritious recipes, download our free Grab-and-Go Recipe Guide.

More ways to pay for school meals

Choice and personalisation are at the heart of emerging school catering trends, and this extends to transaction methods with the growing popularity of mobile payments. 72% of Gen Z are happy to rely on their phone for payments, and by 2027, digital wallets are expected to account for 29% of all UK in-store transactions. For many students, staff and visitors, flexible payment options, especially mobile and contactless, are now essential. Schools should:

Offer integrated Chip & Pin at the point of sale for fast, secure, contactless transactions by Google Pay, Apple Pay or card.
Enable students to use their cashless catering account via their mobile phones, such as with the new Digital Wallet from Fusion Cashless, which provides convenience and Free School Meal anonymity at the till. Students make purchases from their cashless account by scanning a QR code on their phone at the till. The Fusion QR code is stored in their phone's wallet app, just like a regular debit or credit card, maintaining privacy for students using Free School Meals.

School sustainability and reducing food waste

Sustainability remains a hot topic in education, with environmental subjects included in school curriculums and becoming ingrained in day-to-day operations. According to catering distributor Bidfood, 70% of consumers factor in sustainability when deciding where to dine out. Cutting food waste, reducing school meals' carbon footprint, and sourcing local, seasonal ingredients are the key steps schools can take to boost their sustainability. To promote eco-friendly practices to students, schools can:

Reduce food waste by implementing user-friendly meal pre-ordering systems for primary schools and secondary schools that help caterers prepare accurate meal quantities.
Promote plant-based, low-carbon, local and seasonal foods in lunch menus via item descriptions and notifications in their self-ordering system and pre-order app.

Prioritising choice and nutrition in school meals

It’s essential to offer students a variety of healthy lunch choices. 'Build your own' options, such as meal deals, salad bars, baked potatoes and taco bowls with customisable toppings, are increasingly popular. This reflects the broader shift towards accommodating more dietary requirements and varied tastes in the food service industry. Modern students are more knowledgeable about nutrition and its impact on their overall well-being, meaning schools should:

Offer variety and customisable options on lunch menus. Meal deals applied automatically at the PoS help to offer students personalised meals without slowing down transactions at the till.
Optimise the health benefits of menu items using a menu management system with built-in nutritional analysis reporting. Plus, schools can advertise allergen and dietary information with easy, clear labelling for each item.

Takeaway

Migrating to cloud-hosted systems

With better flexibility, more intuitive interfaces, and reduced infrastructure requirements, more schools are moving to cloud-based systems. Edtech Digest ranks cloud migration as the number one trend in education technology for 2025, saying it “not only reduces on-premises infrastructure costs but also enhances accessibility and collaboration.” As in other areas of school operations, cloud hosting offers many advantages for school catering services, including:

Cloud-hosted cashless catering offers schools enhanced security, scalability and easier maintenance than on-site hosting.
Multi-academy trusts, local authorities, and contract caterers can easily access actionable data insights with aggregated reporting across their whole school group.
Schools can receive more comprehensive support from their cashless provider, such as Fusion Hub’s automatic software updates and proactive monitoring for faster error detection.