Focus on Food Campaign
The campaign raises the profile and importance of food education and helps secure, sustain and strengthen the status of food in primary and secondary schools nationally, and the wider community.

The Focus on Food Campaign is all about cooking. Established in 1998, the Focus on Food Campaign is the leading practical food education and outreach programme in the UK. The Focus on Food Campaign was set up against a background of a national decline in cooking ability and teaching coupled with rising health problems caused by poor diet and lack of food knowledge and skills.

The Campaign inspires and enables young people and the wider community to cook and trains teachers, youth and community group leaders and health professionals to teach young people and adults how to select, prepare and cook healthy food.

With increasing obesity among young people and the emphasis on healthy eating and whole-school approaches to food in schools, Focus on Food maintains that the diet and health of the nation will not change significantly unless people are taught the basic skills to cook tasty meals from fresh ingredients and can make a connection between health messages, where food comes from and what they are eating.

Key messages
The Focus on Food Campaign aims to raise the profile and importance of food education and to help secure, sustain and strengthen the status of food in primary and secondary schools nationally. The Campaign focuses on the making and cooking of food as the key experience in learning about the social importance of food.

At the core of the Campaign is the drive to:

• Ensure cooking is at the core of food education
• Improve food teacher recruitment and training
• Improve food teaching facilities in schools
• Implement a whole-school approach to food in all school
• Make food education compulsory in all primary and secondary schools 

The Cooking Buses

The Focus on Food Campaign carries out practical training aboard its flagship mobile cooking classrooms – the Cooking Buses! The Food for Life Partnership Cooking Bus has been made available through Big Lottery funding. Other Cooking Buses are provided in partnership with the Food Standards Agency, Regional Development Agency Yorkshire Forward, and the Welsh Assembly Government. The Cooking Buses tour schools and community groups throughout the year teaching vital cooking skills alongside nutrition, healthy eating and an appreciation of good food and where it comes from.