20ft Shipping Container converted into Catering Pod for Studley High School Warwickshire

We are very proud to have helped recently with the conversion of a one trip 20ft shipping container for Studley High School in Warwickshire. In this case study we look at what was done with the conversion and how it helped our customer.

Studley High School is based in the centre of the town of Studley, to the south of Birmingham. It serves the local town as well as the surrounding towns of Stratford-upon-Avon, Alcester, Tanworth-in-Arden and Mappleborough Green. Bordering Worcestershire they also take in students from Redditch, Wythall and Astwood Bank and more.

With a growing local population and consistent outstanding OFSTED results, the school has grown in recent years and their catering provision has become very stretched, this lead onto the problem or challenge that needed solving.

The ‘challenge’ 

To meet their growing demands for catering, the school was considering some form of outdoor serving solution that could ease the pressure on, and also compliment the existing catering provision. The idea was for some form of covered area outside that could serve drinks and lighter food offerings.

We initially visited the school and talked with the team about where this could go, to match the customers needs but also ensure that the location of the unit and the specification would come in at a sensible price and meet their needs.

After initial discussions and quotes, we settled with the design that later became this catering pod. A one trip (new) 20ft high cube container would be converted to allow for food and drink service. It needed to look smart, it needed to be built to a catering spec to allow for easy cleaning of walls and floor, and it needed to be a of a quality and robustness that would last many years. Another bonus was the level of customisation that we can offer with such units. We can offer roller shutter openings or more basic serving hatch options with gas struts, which can be cut to size and fitted wherever the customer needs within the frame of the container.  We can offer a wide variety of internal panneling and external cladding options, and we even mounted wall sockets, light switches and all trunking to match appliance locations as well as leaving access holes for plumbing to meet the customers internal layout.

The cargo doors needed to remain operable to allow for larger items and machinery (large fridges and similar) to be loaded into the catering pod for daily use. The customer wanted a secure smart serving hatch option and we looked at a number of options before settling on the roller shutter opening.

Finally we also went for a high cube 20ft container which is 9ft 6 high instead of a standard 8ft 6 high container. This gave the customer more working space, but it also allowed us to mount the roller shutter inside the container whilst leaving a suitable working height inside. The wood cladding was included to help set this unit apart and help it blend in better with the school and its surrounding playing fields.

The Build

For us the build was nothing unusual. This might be a new design for us but each part of the conversion of this container is very much an everyday job for us. There was no new special or technical knowledge to apply for this container conversion. It took us approx 6 weeks from receipt of payment to delivery, although lead times can vary depending on current workloads for any conversion orders.

Delivering the converted shipping container across playing fields

This container (as with a lot of our school deliveries) needed our truck to run across the playing fields to access the spot that the school wanted the container to sit. This is a service that we can offer, although this is a tricky and involved process. Often we will only be able to attempt this over summer months, and we will always require the site to indemnify us (our trucks) from getting stuck on any potentially soft ground.

In this case the customer had a very good relationship with local haulier Alleys group. We delivered the converted shipping container to their yard, and Alleys did the final delivery onto the school playing fields. As a locally based firm they not only know the site well, but they have support available locally should the worst happen. This is always a sensible setup (when available) for tricky deliveries.

You can see some pictures of the container delivery via the Studly High School blog.

We would like to thank Studly High School for the business (of course!), Studley in Business for the initial introductions, and Allelys group for the final delivery, and for being so helpful and professional helping us deliver the container into their yard.

Budgetshippingcontainers.co.uk offer the UK’s largest online range of shipping containers for sale with a nationwide network of storage and conversion yards and crane equipped delivery vehicles.

If you need a shipping container feel free to browse our online range of shipping containers for sale. You can also call us on freephone 0808 1234 215 any time 9am – 5pm weekdays and our team will be happy to discuss your requirements. Alternatively, you can use our online shipping container quote form or request a telephone callback. In both cases we aim to get back to you within 1-2 working hours (may take longer for more detailed quotes).