True North Food Consultants partners with schools through a clear, honest process built on listening, flexibility, and genuine support.
Start With a Free Consultation
True North Food Consultants partners with schools through a clear, honest process built on listening, flexibility, and genuine support.
Start With a Free Consultation
Step 1: Free Initial Consultation
No cost. No obligation. Just honest guidance.
We spend a full day at your school:
Observe
your current kitchen operation and dining program
Meet
with leadership, kitchen staff, PTSA, and anyone invested in change
Listen
to what's working well and what needs improvement
Understand
your community, constraints, and aspirations
At the end of the day, we sit down with stakeholders for an open discussion about what we've seen and answer your questions.
Then we go away and write a report.
Within one week, you'll receive a detailed written report with our honest recommendations.
This might suggest:
We follow up with an on-site or online meeting to clarify the report and answer any questions.
▫ Changes you can implement yourself
▫ Partnering with a local restaurant or caterer
▫ Joining the School Food Collective for peer support
▫ Working with True North for deeper transition support
▫ Other creative solutions based on your specific context
What it costs:
Nothing.
You cover our travel and accommodation.
That's it.
Why we do this:
We genuinely want to help schools find the right path—even if that path doesn't include us.
Step 2: Partnership (If You Want Our Help)
If our report recommends ongoing support and you want to work together, we offer a comprehensive Two-Year Transition Partnership.
The Partnership Model
Monthly Retainer: ¥200,000/month
You can pause when you're working on something independently
You can resume when you need us again
You can end anytime with a month's notice if we're not the right fit
You can extend beyond two years if you want continued support
This isn't a rigid contract. It's a flexible partnership where:
What's Included
We're all in, or we're not.
You'll never worry about whether a question "costs extra" or if you're bothering us too much. When we're your partners, we're fully committed.
Everything you need to build independence:
School covers travel and accommodation for all on-site visits and training. Training at our Yokohama kitchen is included in the partnership—your staff just cover their own travel and accommodation.
Payment & Logistics
Our Philosophy
We don't want to run your school food service.
We want you to run it with confidence.
Some weeks you'll need us on-site daily because everything's happening at once. Other weeks you'll be working independently on menus or staffing decisions and won't need us at all.
That's exactly how it should be.
Our success is measured by your independence—not by how long we can keep you dependent on us.
When You're Ready
There's no formal "graduation ceremony." When you feel confident running independently, we step back. Simple as that.
Many schools continue as paying members of the School Food Collective (¥20,000/year) for ongoing peer support and networking.
And if you hit a challenge months or years later and want to bring us back for a specific issue? We're here.
“We have a clear vision that every child has a right to good, wholesome school food and that food poverty will one day be a thing of the past.”
— Jeanette Orrey
Co-Founder of our Food for Life programme.
© 2025 True North Food Consultants. Part of Harbour View Services.