Derbyshire schools start Food for Life programme

Soil Association’s Food for Life Served Here programme has been working with school caterers across Derbyshire, supporting them to provide healthy school meals, great lunchtimes and food education that has a positive impact on both pupils and the wider community.
 
Derbyshire County Council produces and serves more than 50,000 school meals to children across the county every day which are all freshly prepared using locally sourced, sustainable ingredients, including organic beef, MSC Certified fish and free-range eggs as part of the Food for Life Served Here scheme it supports. Championing local suppliers within the county, food sourcing includes eggs and milk from Holdsworth Foods in Chesterfield, fruit and vegetables from both John Palin and Tomson Buxton in Buxton, and Beef from Lowerhurst Organic.
 
Derbyshire County Council is promoting the quality of its school food and FFLSH with a tasting programme during the autumn term. Each primary school will be offering free samples of food to parents and carers in the playground either before or after school on a selected date. Providing a fantastic opportunity to meet up and let them try food first hand which their children will be enjoying in school.
 
Hady Primary School in Chesterfield was one of the first schools to host a tasting session which took place earlier this month (November). Parents were invited into the school hall to enjoy samples of tomato quiche, carrot cake and warm homemade rolls.  It was a great success and shows the commitment of the school and the catering team working together.
 
Derbyshire County Council’s Cabinet Member for Health and Communities Councillor Carol Hart said: “Our school catering service provides more than 50,000 meals across the county every day as part of its commitment to ensuring Derbyshire children have a happy, healthy start in life which also helps them to learn well.
“Our teams work hard to provide children with well-balanced, nutritious food and, with the help of the Food for Life programme, pupils are also learning about where their food comes from.”
 
Food for Life delivers a flexible, evidence-based programme that is proven to tackle health inequalities by integrating practical learning that reconnects children and young people to the food they eat, following the journey from field to plate.
 
S. White, Blackwell Primary School, continued, "Through FFL, children have had the chance to grow their own produce and this has been used by our school catering supervisor in our school meals.  The children have built a positive working relationship with our caterer and had the chance to enjoy tasting their home-grown fruits, vegetables and herbs."
 
 Independent research highlights Food for Life's potential to make a positive contribution to the health and wellbeing of both pupils and parents. Pupils in Food for Life schools are twice as likely to eat five a day, and a third less likely to eat no fruit or vegetables than pupils in comparison schools. Furthermore, pupils in Food for Life schools eat around a third more fruit and vegetables than pupils in comparison schools, and significantly more fruit and vegetables at home. (Jones et al, 2015)
 
Food for Life Served Here meals are Soil Association inspected, meaning parents and guardians know they’re good for children, good for the community and good for the planet. Simply put, Food for Life makes good food the easy choice for children, helping pupils eat better, learn better and live better.