Tiffin School, a modern state secondary school in Kingston-upon-Thames, is dedicated to providing a seamless and efficient dining experience for its nearly 1,500 students. Faced with growing student numbers and limited break times, the school needed a solution to reduce queues, speed up service, and create a more enjoyable lunchtime experience.
Curious about self-serve school dining?
Speed of service was our greatest challenge
Senior Finance Officer Tina Costello explained that Tiffin School needed a way to speed up their lunch service, deliver students’ meals faster and reduce crowding in the busy dining hall:
“The main thing was speed; that’s our big problem. We needed more tills for lunchtime crowds without needing more people on tills.”
To solve this, Tiffin School introduced Self-Serve Kiosks, that complement their existing Fusion Cashless system, offering a modern, hybrid, self-service solution.
“We still have two of the traditional tills… and then the three self-service kiosks. That seems to work very well.”
Sharon Gordon Roberts, Finance Director
Faster service, happy students
The additional points of sale have dramatically reduced queuing times, ensuring students have more time to enjoy their meals and socialise.
“It’s so much faster than paying at the till, and pupils love it. It’s just like checking out at the supermarket.”
Tina Costello, Senior Finance Officer
Increased sales and less waste
Tiffin students now choose school food more often due to the improved, quick and easy dining experience. This has increased school catering sales while reducing food waste.
“It’s improved the flow through of students, so sales are going up… We literally sell out of all the food that’s been prepared at break time.”
Sharon Gordon Roberts, Finance Director
How Self-Serve Kiosks Work
Self-Serve Kiosks give students an easy and efficient way to purchase meals:
Log in
Students access their cashless accounts by tapping their ID cards or scanning their fingerprints.
Select items
They scan pre-packaged items with the built-in barcode reader or choose from the touchscreen menu.
Checkout
Students complete their purchases using their cashless account. Staff and older students can also use the integrated card reader for Chip & Pin or mobile payments.
“We’ve set the menu up in all different tabs: hot food, cold food, breakfast, and paninis. Pupils know exactly where all the tabs are – they’re really quick. They quickly find items and pay; it’s faster than a traditional till.”
Tina Costello, Senior Finance Officer
Students’ preferred school dining experience
In addition to the improved speed of service, Finance Director Sharon sees three reasons why students love using Self-Serve Kiosks:
Empowering meal choices
“Students are enjoying it; they like having the ownership of being able to key in themselves what they've actually bought.”
Transparent pricing
“They can see the price straight away.”
Familiar technology
“They're used to using them, so they're really good.”
Fully self-serve breakfasts and sixth-form breaks speed up operations
Tiffin School now operates a self-serve-only breakfast using the kiosks. This has freed up staff each morning to prepare food and set up the dining hall for busier service times.
“The staff can fill shelves and get on with sandwich prep, as the self-service is open. Boys can wander in and buy something, or a teacher can buy their coffee at the Self-Serve Kiosk.”
Tina Costello, Senior Finance Officer
The catering team also saves time in between services, as sixth form students can purchase food and drink independently during their free periods:
“That is a brilliant thing, because they can pop in, they can use a self-service kiosk and pay and leave without a member of our canteen staff having to stop what they’re doing to come and operate the older tills.”
Sharon Gordon Roberts, Finance Director
Supporting school catering staff
Due to limited staff numbers, the catering team previously needed a rota of additional helpers to operate traditional tills during break and lunch services. However, lunchtimes now run smoothly, with Self-Serve Kiosks reducing the manual workload.
“Now it runs very efficiently. We have three self-service tills in a row. So, they can be managed by one of our canteen members of staff who’s superb now at the self-service and will just supervise those three kiosks.”
Sharon Gordon Roberts, Finance Director
Catering Supervisor Mega Lal, now oversees the school’s three Self-Serve Kiosks:
“Now we need just three members of staff. I stay there and watch the boys [using kiosks]. Two members of staff serve the manual tills. It makes our day much easier.”
Seamless Chip & Pin payments for staff and visitors
The integration of card readers with the kiosk system has simplified payments for staff, visitors and older students, offering secure and convenient options.
“It’s really popular with staff who can use their bank cards as Chip & Pin is now integrated with the Self-Serve Kiosk.”
Tina Costello, Senior Finance Officer
Space-saving design increases efficiency
With nearly 1,500 students to serve in a short time, the Tiffin team needed to maximise space in their compact dining hall.
“Our canteen is quite small for the number of students, especially the point where they all have to funnel through to pay for their items.”
Sharon Gordon Roberts, Finance Director
With its slim floor-standing, wall-mounted and countertop options, kiosks offer significant space savings compared to traditional tills, allowing more students to purchase meals at once.
“We could easily replace one traditional PoS and put four kiosks to maximise that space. We’re very tight on space; that’s why they’re so good; they’re slim and sleek and fit in easily.”
Tina Costello, Senior Finance Officer
Self-service technology is a natural fit for schools
With more than 350,000 self-ordering restaurant kiosks worldwide and young consumers favouring independent purchasing experiences, bringing self-service technology into school canteens was a natural progression.
Carl Lewis, CRB Cunninghams Release Manager, explained:
“We developed the Self-Serve Kiosk to help schools and colleges provide users with an easy, efficient way to purchase their meals. The kiosks are built into the Fusion Cashless system, so they work seamlessly alongside our traditional tills, offering a completely integrated cashless solution.”
The future of school catering with Self-Serve Kiosks
Since launching Self-Serve Kiosks, Tiffin’s students have enjoyed a modern, interactive purchasing experience, and staff have benefited from streamlined catering operations.
“We’ve seen an increase in sales, an increase in income. And the experience of using the canteen, for the students, having reduced queues, the whole experience being more efficient, more effective, has been a great benefit to us.”
Sharon Gordon Roberts, Finance Director
Looking ahead, Tiffin School continues to work closely with CRB Cunninghams on future enhancements to Self-Serve Kiosks for school dining. This includes sharing invaluable insights that helped develop new Advanced Order Self-Serve Kiosks for restaurant-style, in-service school meal ordering.
Download the full Tiffin School Self-Serve Kiosk case study
