Zebedees

What Zebedees does

Zebedees is a UK-based for-profit company that provides nutritious prepared meals to nurseries across five South-East England counties: Sussex, Kent, Surrey, Essex, and London. The company is headquartered in Laughton and was founded in 1998, giving it 27 years of operating history in the early-years food service niche. Employee count is reported in the 51-100 range, consistent with a regional meal-preparation and distribution operation serving multiple nursery sites on a recurring, likely daily, delivery cycle.

The company's offering centers on nutritious meal provision for nursery-age children, an inherently regulated category in the UK requiring food-safety compliance, nutritional standards, and allergen management. Revenue mechanics are not disclosed in the available data — no pricing model, contract terms, or per-meal economics are visible. There is no indication of intellectual property, proprietary technology, or branded product lines beyond the meal service itself; the firm's website (zebedees.co.uk) returned a verification/loader page rather than substantive content during data collection, so product depth, menu structure, certifications, and channel strategy could not be confirmed.

Customer base is implicitly distributed across the nursery sector within the named five-county footprint, with no named customer logos, no public segment mix, and no enterprise vs. SMB split disclosed. No parent company, subsidiaries, funding history, M&A activity, partnerships, regulatory actions, or leadership changes are present in the input. As a result, ownership structure, governance, and recent strategic activity cannot be characterized from this data set.

Name

Zebedees

Website

https://zebedees.co.uk

Company type

Private

Founded year

1998

Headcount range

51–100 employees

Short description

Zebedees is a UK nursery meal provider, founded in 1998 and headquartered in Laughton, delivering nutritious prepared meals to nurseries across Sussex, Kent, Surrey, Essex, and London.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Nursery Catering

NAICS

Caterers (72232)

akta.pro primary industry

Central Kitchen & Commissary Operations (Batch Cooking, Satellite Serving) (EDAEAEAG)

Keywords

• Nursery meal catering
• Early years meals
• Childcare food service
• School meal delivery
• Nutritious nursery food

Headquarters

HQ city

Laughton

HQ country

United Kingdom

HQ region

Europe

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Supply Chain, Personnel, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Infrastructure

Core offering

Zebedees provides nutritious prepared nursery meals to early years childcare settings in the UK. The company delivers food to nurseries located in Sussex, Kent, Surrey, Essex, and London, operating as a dedicated catering supplier for the under-fives segment since 1998.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Nursery meal catering service

Ideal customer profiles1 record

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Recent moves1 record

Expansion highlights1 record

Broad incumbents

• CH&CO: CH&CO is a major UK contract caterer serving workplaces, venues, and education clients. Comparable to Zebedees as a UK contract caterer with overlap in the education segment, though it operates across a much broader portfolio.
• Sodexo UK & Ireland: Sodexo is a global facilities-services and contract-catering group with a substantial UK education and nursery catering business. It competes with Zebedees on the same customer type but with vastly greater scale, geographic reach, and bundled service offerings.
• Elior UK: Elior UK is the British arm of the Elior Group contract-catering business, serving education, workplaces, and healthcare. Comparable to Zebedees in education catering, with significant scale and procurement advantages.
• Compass Group UK & Ireland: Compass Group is the world's largest contract caterer, with multiple UK education-facing brands (Chartwells, Cucina, etc.). Comparable to Zebedees in serving UK nursery catering contracts, with unparalleled scale, capital, and cross-selling capacity.
• Baxter Storey: Baxter Storey is one of the UK's largest independent contract caterers, providing workplace, education, and nursery catering. While broader than Zebedees, it competes for the same nursery catering contracts from a position of significantly greater scale.

Direct peers

• Caterlink: Caterlink is a UK specialist contract caterer focused on education and nursery settings. It is directly comparable to Zebedees as both serve nursery and school meal contracts using a central-kitchen delivery model across similar UK regions.
• Taylor Shaw: Taylor Shaw is a UK-based education catering specialist serving schools and nurseries with freshly prepared meals. It competes with Zebedees in the same education-catering niche using a similar contract-catering model.
• Innovate Food Services: Innovate is a UK contract caterer focused on the education sector, including nursery and school meal contracts. Comparable to Zebedees as a regional education-catering specialist serving similar institutional customers.
• Chartwells (Compass Group): Chartwells is the UK education division of Compass Group, providing school and nursery meals at scale. It is a direct competitor in the education-catering segment, with the advantage of a global parent company's scale and procurement.

Others

• ISS Facility Services UK: ISS is a global facility-services provider that bundles catering with cleaning, security, and other services for institutional clients including schools and nurseries. It is an indirect competitor and ecosystem participant rather than a pure-play nursery caterer.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat3 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights4 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/ZebedeesMeals
• Facebookfacebook.com/ZebedeesMeals
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/zebedeesltd

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Zebedees