diff --git a/Gruntfile.js b/Gruntfile.js
index a3b699ea79f..987156a4515 100644
--- a/Gruntfile.js
+++ b/Gruntfile.js
@@ -50,6 +50,17 @@ module.exports = function(grunt) {
                     }
                 )
             }
+        },
+        less: {
+            bootstrapbase: {
+                files: {
+                    "theme/bootstrapbase/style/moodle.css": "theme/bootstrapbase/less/moodle.less",
+                    "theme/bootstrapbase/style/editor.css": "theme/bootstrapbase/less/editor.less",
+                },
+                options: {
+                    compress: true
+                }
+           }
         }
     });
 
@@ -215,6 +226,7 @@ module.exports = function(grunt) {
             grunt.task.run('shifter');
             grunt.task.run('jshint');
             grunt.task.run('uglify');
+            grunt.task.run('less');
         }
     };
 
@@ -222,6 +234,7 @@ module.exports = function(grunt) {
     // Register NPM tasks.
     grunt.loadNpmTasks('grunt-contrib-uglify');
     grunt.loadNpmTasks('grunt-contrib-jshint');
+    grunt.loadNpmTasks('grunt-contrib-less');
 
     // Register the shifter task.
     grunt.registerTask('shifter', 'Run Shifter against the current directory', tasks.shifter);
diff --git a/package.json b/package.json
index 6c3f59baa1d..d7c522a9e99 100644
--- a/package.json
+++ b/package.json
@@ -5,6 +5,7 @@
     "devDependencies": {
         "grunt": "0.4.5",
         "grunt-contrib-jshint": "0.11.2",
+        "grunt-contrib-less": "1.1.0",
         "grunt-contrib-uglify": "0.9.1",
         "shifter": "0.5.0",
         "uglify-js": "2.4.22"
diff --git a/theme/bootstrapbase/README.txt b/theme/bootstrapbase/README.txt
index dadc4996441..a4d16afd57f 100644
--- a/theme/bootstrapbase/README.txt
+++ b/theme/bootstrapbase/README.txt
@@ -23,7 +23,7 @@ accessibility and Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
 
 *less CSS
 Less CSS is a Object Oriented way of writing CSS code. All Less CSS files
-for this theme are stored in the /less folder. A developer can use recess
+for this theme are stored in the /less folder. A developer can use grunt
 to generate the CSS files in the /style folder. For more
 information read /less/README
 
diff --git a/theme/bootstrapbase/less/README b/theme/bootstrapbase/less/README
index 2a9b5b72a50..f5f9d6639f0 100644
--- a/theme/bootstrapbase/less/README
+++ b/theme/bootstrapbase/less/README
@@ -1,33 +1,16 @@
-About bootstrap in Moodle
--------------------------
+Compiling LESS
+--------------
+
 If you want to make changes to the .css generated from these .less files then you
-need to use a LESS Compiler. Details on specific compilers and how to install them
-can be found at http://docs.moodle.org/dev/LESS
+need to use a less compiler to build your changes. The supported way to achieve this
+is using grunt.
 
-At present, recess is the official tool for developers to compile LESS in to CSS, as
-other tools give different results in the generated CSS.
+See https://docs.moodle.org/dev/Grunt for details of how to install grunt.
 
-Once recess has been installed you can compile and compress the LESS in to CSS using
-the following commands from the "theme/bootstrapbase/less" directory:
+Once grunt is installed run the 'less' task:
 
-For the main Moodle styles:
+ $ grunt less
 
-    recess --compile --compress moodle.less > ../style/moodle.css
-
-And for the subset of styles of interest to the TinyMCE editor:
-
-    recess --compile --compress editor.less >  ../style/editor.css
-
-You can add --watch to make sure it updates every time you make a change.
-
-If the compilation is failing and you're not getting any useful error message, try using lessc instead i.e.:
-
-    lessc moodle.less
-
-This is the same tool that's getting called by recess, but the errors seems better if you go direct.
-
-More information
-----------------
-Additional information about the Moodle bootstrap base theme can be found at
-http://docs.moodle.org/dev/Bootstrap
+And the css files will be compiled.
 
+For further info see: https://docs.moodle.org/dev/LESS
diff --git a/theme/bootstrapbase/readme_moodle.txt b/theme/bootstrapbase/readme_moodle.txt
index 8b2fe0e4211..44ea5a7c197 100644
--- a/theme/bootstrapbase/readme_moodle.txt
+++ b/theme/bootstrapbase/readme_moodle.txt
@@ -12,8 +12,7 @@ To update to the latest release of twitter bootstrap:
 * download the new less files and store them in less/bootstrap
 * Apply change in MDL-42195 (We don't want responsive images by default).
 * Apply change in MDL-48328 (We need to reset the width of the container directly, in ./less/bootstrap/navbar.less, using the calculated value found in ./less/bootstrap/mixin.less).
-* regenerate files using recess: recess --compile --compress moodle.less > ../style/moodle.css **
-* regenerate files using recess: recess --compile --compress editor.less > ../style/editor.css **
+* regenerate css files using grunt
 * update ./thirdpartylibs.xml
 
 ** If you want to make changes to the .css generated from these .less files then you