Local Authorities
Cool Milk operates and administers school milk schemes in partnership with Local Authorities across schools, pre-schools, nurseries and PVIs (Private, Voluntary and Independent settings).

We are the UK’s leading Local Authority-approved scheme that:

  • Purchases milk from your nominated dairy – the school or nursery receives no dairy bills.
  • Completes all claim paperwork and administration free of charge.
  • Provides a free fridge and promotional material for all schools that use our ‘fullschool milk scheme’.
  • Free milk for under-fives, fully funded by the Department of Health.
  • Milk for over-fives, subsidised by the Rural Payments Agency and the E.U.
  • Free milk for over-fives entitled to free school meals.*
  • Cool Milk fully administers the Nursery Milk Reimbursement Unit (NMRU) claim and the Rural Payments Agency (RPA) claim, free of charge, removing administration costs and the hourly rate of a finance team member to process claims.
  • Cool Milk’s state-of-the-art enterprise resource planning (ERP) system ensures strong process management between customers and suppliers.
  • A fully integrated invoicing and claims process eliminates errors and reduces costs.

* Available in selected areas only, milk subsidised by Rural Payments Agency and paid for by school or Local Authority.

  • Cool Milk pays the dairy for the milk and fully administers the whole process including school orders, dairy deliveries, invoice matching, audit trails, NMRU claims and RPA claims.
  • We deal with any day-to-day dairy delivery issues and order amendments.
  • We manage milk schemes for over-fives, including supplying the children at mid-morning break and collecting funds directly from the parent.
  • We support schools with educational material to aid Healthy School status and follow the Food Standard Agency guidelines on the Eatwell Guide.
  • We can continue to work with incumbent dairies without any changes being made to their contract or any legal implications.
  • We can source new local dairies providing milk from local cows and farmers.
  • Cool Milk purchases the milk on behalf of the Local Authority through the existing dairy, as part of a tri-party agreement.
  • There’s no cash transaction between the Local Authority and Cool Milk, we continue to purchase all school milk, so there are no contractual or legal obstacles.
  • We work with dairies to increase the daily number of milk drinkers.