Remembering Casserole
21 Nov 2025Remembering Casserole
I was reminded of a FutureGov project from 15ish years ago called Casserole. Yesterday I took the opportunity to tell a bit of the story to a group of senior managers, to try and set some context for digital transformation.
Casserole was a local volunteer scheme, supported by a social web platform. It helped people share extra portions of home-cooked food with others in their area who might not be able to cook for themselves. It was collaboratively developed by FutureGov and a few councils around the UK.
The online social network was supported by a matchmaking team and local organisations like care homes, lunch clubs and voluntary organisations. Safeguarding and food hygiene were managed through DBS checks and online food safety quizzes. Social technology was being used to build neighbourhood connections and reduce the demand on traditional meals on wheels services.
At its peak people were sharing 1000’s of meals in the UK and Australia, but it never quite found a sustainable financial model. Smartphones were not quite as ubiquitous, pilot funding didn’t quite run long enough and austerity was really starting to bite - so radical delivery models looked like very risky options.
Fast forward to 2025 and I can use my phone to get any number of foods delivered to my door via Uber Eats and Deliveroo, but we’re still not fully applying everything the technology offers to really challenge our existing operating models. That was my pitch anyway, supported by a healthy dose of nostalgia for a wonderful project that I remain convinced should exist today.
Double the governance, double the fun
A unique feature of a shared service role is navigating large decisions through two organisations. My team has done an excellent job of managing the procurement process for our cloud services infrastructure - the last piece of the puzzle is getting approval at the relevant committees for both councils.
Reading / listening
A few long drives to and from the office this week, so i’ve mostly been listening to Apple in China, The Capture of the World’s Greatest Company. A really enjoyable story that has the history of Apple, deep nerdery on industrial and product design, stories of impossible manufacturing challenges and the main narrative of how China’s long term strategic planning used Apple to completely transform its economy.
Things I emailed myself
Katherine Wastell with some hard earned lessons on transformation
Polly Mackenzie on change and bureaucracy really resonated. The link to the three horizons model and how we need to create ‘iconoplastic’ organisations is something a lot of digital teams will recognise - particularly the need to see where rules need to be rewritten and to really hear the defenders of the status quo.