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£17 Million Big Lottery Fund grant to the Food for Life Partnership

180 schools in diverse communities across England will now become beacons of good food culture, thanks to £16.9 million Big Lottery funding for the Food for Life Partnership [1]. The positive impacts will go much further, getting schoolchildren and parents across the country cooking, re-skilling dinner ladies, and offering farmers secure markets for local, seasonal and sustainably-produced food.

Led by the Soil Association, The Food for Life Partnership [2] consists of the Focus on Food Campaign, Garden Organic and the Health Education Trust, bringing together unique experience of successful practical work in schools, revolutionising school meals and giving children the chance to grow and cook food, and visit organic farms.

Who will benefit from this Big Lottery Fund grant?
School children and parents: Over 150,000 pupils and parents across the nine English regions, which will each host 20 food flagship schools.

School communities: Communities around flagship schools will have access to a Food for Life Cooking Bus to teach much needed cooking skills and support to start organic vegetable gardens and visit organic farms.

Dinner ladies: Frontline force in serving up good school meals, hundreds will be enthused and inspired to plan seasonal, healthy menus and cook with fresh, local, organic food. [3]

UK schools generally: Beyond the 180 flagship schools, at least 3,600 more schools countrywide will get the tools to meet the Food for Life gold standard. [4]

Caterers: Local authority and commercial caterers will be given support in building on the new school meal standards, working towards the Food for Life targets (75% of ingredients unprocessed, 50% local, 30% organic) and to develop relationships with local and organic suppliers.

Farmers and growers: Food for Life schools and communities need producers to supply local, seasonal and organic foodstuffs. New organic demonstration farms will be established in each region to host school and community farm visits.

Food for Life increases uptake of school dinners
Hundreds of schools already working towards the Food for Life targets have seen take-up of school dinners rise, bucking the national trend. Food for Life works because it is a truly whole school approach that engages children and parents throughout, from planning menu changes to learning about the value of fresh, local and organic food. For example, award winning Millfields Community School in Hackney has exceeded the Food for Life targets and seen take-up rise by 40%, despite being in a socially-deprived area where nearly 50% of children are eligible for a free school meal. [5]

Peter Melchett, Policy Director of the Soil Association, said:
“Big Lottery funding for the Food for Life Partnership is a huge boost to delivering healthy eating, reviving food culture and supporting sustainable farming in this country. There is little hope for our nation’s health and the global climate if children grow up unable to identify a carrot, and think food starts life in the supermarket.
Food for Life flagship schools, and the linked organic farm visits and growing projects will give hundreds of thousands of children and their parents the skills and knowledge to cook and eat healthily and affordably, as well as the power to influence the whole food-chain.”

Anita Cormac, Director of the Focus on Food Campaign, said: “It is not just pupils that will benefit from cooking classes on board the new Food for Life Cooking Bus, run by Focus on Food. Parents and the wider community will also have opportunities to learn. Involving both pupils and their parents in practical food education is the key to winning support for healthier food in schools and beyond.”

Susan Kay Williams, Chief Executive of Garden Organic, said:
“There is no better way of getting children eating vegetables than helping them to grow their own in school gardens. Every school, urban or rural, can grow seasonal organic produce for school dinners, and Food for Life flagship schools will be demonstrating how.”

Joe Harvey, Director of the Health Education Trust, said: “The Food for Life Partnership represents a truly ‘whole school approach’ to healthy and sustainable eating. Together we can help flagship schools point the way to a positive food culture, addressing both the obesity epidemic and the urgent need for a low-carbon food system.”

Watch the short Video News Release
It provides a visual snapshot of what Food for Life means in practice – schoolchildren on a farm visit; inner-city schools ‘feeding brains’ and engaging parents; enjoying a healthy, local, organic dinner; growing their own vegetables; dinner ladies gaining new skills; farmer talking about value of farm visits to his business and community.

For more information contact:
Soil Association press office
T: 0117 9874580
E: press [at] soilassociation [dot] org

Spokespeople:
Peter Melchett, Policy Director, Soil Association
M: 07740 951066

Anita Cormac, Director, Focus on Food Campaign
M: 07979 590669

Joe Harvey, Director, Health Education Trust
M: 07778 650275

Susan Kay Williams, Chief Executive, Garden Organic
T: 02476 308 208 / 02476 303 517

Rachael Quilton, Big Lottery Fund press office
T: 0207 211 1818.

Notes to Editors

1. The Big Lottery Fund announced today (12.12.06) that the Food for Life Partnership will receive £16.9 million over five years from its Wellbeing Fund, to promote healthy eating in schools and their communities across England. School nutrition action groups, community veg box schemes and farm visits will all be on the menu. Children and their families will learn how to cook, as well as how to grow their own vegetables.

2. The Food for Life Partnership brings together four partners with extensive practical experience of working on food issues in schools:

The Soil Association’s Food for Life programme is already working with hundreds of schools and eight Local Education Authorities in England and Scotland. It has developed local and organic supply for schools and hospitals and has already run Food for Life pilots in five English regions.

The Focus on Food Campaign uses a fleet of Cooking Buses to teach cooking skills to pupils and train their teachers in thousands of primary and secondary schools across the country. Big Lottery funding will support a new Food for Life Cooking Bus run by Focus on Food.

Garden Organic works with over 3500 schools across the UK on growing projects to educate children about food origins and give them more interest in fresh vegetables. Communities will learn how to set up and run organic fruit and vegetable gardens.

Health Education Trust has been responsible for the development of the ‘Whole School Approach’ to food and nutrition, since initiating School Nutrition Action Groups (SNAGs) in 1993, which now operate in 17% of schools.

3. Dinner ladies will be empowered to plan seasonal, healthy menus, making use of fresh, local and organic produce that pupils will see harvested on farm visits or grow themselves in school vegetable gardens. Many of the school cooks from flagship communities will be trained at Ashlyn’s Training Kitchen in Essex, founded by pioneering dinner lady and Food for Life Partnership adviser Jeanette who will lead the training programme for dinner ladies. Jeanette’s pioneering work as a dinner lady at St Peter’s Primary, near Nottingham, inspired Jamie Oliver back in 2003.

4. The Food for Life Partnership will launch a Food for Life Mark in 2007 to recognise the achievements of schools revolutionising food culture across the whole school, from healthy, fresh, local, organic school meals to practical cooking and growing skills and farm visits for pupils and the school community.

5. Schools following the Food for Life approach are exceptions to the national trend of declining school meal take-up:

Millfields Community School, Hackney, London terminated a commercial catering contract and switched to 95% unprocessed, 50% local and 40% organic ingredients, exceeding the Food for Life targets. Take-up has risen by 40%. Headmistress, Dame Anna Hassan features on the Food for Life Partnership VNR.

6,000 pupils in 50 Essex schools are benefiting from meals that meet the Food for Life targets, with the help of Ashlyns Organics Ltd and pioneering dinner lady and writer Jeanette Orrey. Uptake has grown across the board by at least 45% after introducing tasty menus, cooked from fresh, using local and organic ingredients.

St Aidan’s Church of England High School, Harrogate switched to fresh, locally sourced food – with homemade chips limited to once a week - back in 2002. Despite a 5% price rise, take-up rose from 30% to over 90%.

In Bradford, the amount spent on school meal ingredients per child has risen by 14p since May 2005 to 60p. 20% of the food served is local, along with organic carrots and milk. Despite this, the price paid by parents has remained low (£1.25) and uptake is well above average, at 56%.