The DfE has provided the following information from Edenred that may be helpful to members negotiating the Edenred website to order food vouchers. We are pressing the DfE to ask Edenred to review the usability of its site and to remove the areas [ST1] where there is potential for an order to be incomplete.

1. Key contacts

For schools:    freeschoolmeals@edenred.com

For parents:    freeschoolmealsparentscarers@edenred.com

2. Recent system improvements

Queueing systems have been set up for both the ordering site and the eCode redemption site. Edenred says that Monday is their busiest day of the week, but that that queue times for 11 May were less than five minutes on both sites.

Edenred says it is making improvements to increase their site capacity and decrease waiting times.  As of Tuesday 12 May, Edenred sais that over £70 millionworth of supermarket vouchers had been redeemed.

3.  ‘Bounced’ emails

Edenred has identified that some emails have not reached the parent because the email address used is not valid. Edenred will contact schools with details of emails that have ‘bounced’ in the coming days. 

They advise checking that parents have supplied accurate addresses. Where contact details are inaccurate, the code should be issued to the school, rather than the parent.

4.  Using the ordering portal

Peak times are currently Monday to Friday, between 8am and 2.30pm. The online ordering site is now open 24 hours, seven days a week.

If you are placing an order for more than one recipient, using the ‘batch’ import, you can prepare your file to be uploaded before logging into the ordering site, which will save you time

When preparing your ‘batch’ file:

• Enter email addresses in lowercase only, and check it has been entered correctly
• Do not include the ‘£’ sign for the value of the Code
• Ensure there are no spaces before or after the data
• Check all the information is correct before saving and uploading your order.

5. Pending or incomplete orders

If you have an order marked as ‘pending’ or ‘incomplete’ it probably needs to be ‘approved’.

To do this:

• Login to your account at https://ordering.edenred.co.uk/
• Find the order in ‘Order history’
• At the bottom of the order page confirm to accept the terms and conditions
• Click ‘Approve’.

Once approved it is submitted to be processed. Edenred states that eCodes will be delivered within four working days.

When ordering always confirm to accept the terms and conditions and then approve your order.

6.     Reducing the burden of ordering vouchers

Edenred encourages schools to order in a way which reduces the burden on both them and the system. These are their ‘top tips’:

Deciding how to order eCodes

• Consider ordering a single eCode to cover a long time frame eg £45 to support one eligible child over three weeks.
• Consider ordering a single eCode to cover more than one eligible child within the same household eg £90 to support three eligible children over two weeks.

Using the ordering portal

• Peak times are currently Monday to Friday, between 8am and 2.30pm. The online ordering site is now open 24 hours, seven days a week.
• If you are placing an order for more than one recipient, using the ‘batch’ import. You can prepare your file to be uploaded before logging into the ordering site, which will save you time.
• When preparing your ‘batch’ file:
• oEnter email addresses in lowercase only and check this has been entered correctly
• oDo not include the ‘£’ sign for the value of the eCode
• oEnsure there are no spaces before or after the data
• oCheck all the information is correct before saving and uploading your order.

eCodes status

• If your order includes eCodes for immediate distribution as well as eCodes for ‘scheduled’ distribution, your order status will continue to show as ‘paid’, until the last of ‘scheduled’ eCodes have been distributed.
• The annex contains instructions for schools with orders stuck in the ‘pending’ stage.

Sharing eCodes with families

• They must redeem their eCode for an eGift card before trying to spend it.
• If you’ve placed an order for ‘scheduled’ direct distribution to recipients, these will be sent throughout the chosen date and if the order was for multiple recipients, these could be phased throughout the day.

Redeeming eCodes

• If you’ve placed an order for ‘scheduled’ stock release, the eCodes contained in this order file will not be activated until the ‘scheduled’ date chosen when you ordered. The recipient will not be able to use these before the ‘scheduled’ date.
• eCodes must be redeemed separately, unless they are for children in the same household. One transaction is equal to one eGift card for each selected retailer.
• eCodes have been updated so they now all expire four months after their delivery date – they were originally intended to expire after one month.
• You can redeem multiple eCodes in one transaction.
• If your school has sent the eCode to the incorrect email address, they should cancel the order and resend it to the correct email address.

7.  Useful information for parents and carers

Redeeming eCodes

• eCodes cannot be spent in store: they must be redeemed for an eGift card.
• If you received the eCode directly from your school by post or text message:
• oAll eCodes should be 16 digits long. If your eCode has a different number of digits, you can query this with your local school administrator and ask if the eCode is correct.
• oYour school administrator can also check the status of your eCode, including the eCode’s ‘Activation date’. eCodes will not work until on or after this date.
• If you have followed all of the steps above and you still cannot redeem your eCode, please email freeschoolmealsparentscarers@edenred.com for further support.

If you receive an error or invalid code message

• You may have entered the incorrect eCode. Please try to enter your eCode again. If your eCode is still not accepted, please delete the browsing history on your device - as your device may be storing the incorrect eCode in its memory.

Spending eGift cards

• Your eGift card will not be topped-up: you will receive a new eCode which must be redeemed to create a new eGift card.

The table below provides information about gift cards from participating supermarkets.

First published 14 May 2020