Participating school catering teams were provided with ten meal themes, recommended recipes, displays and stickers, designed to encourage uptake of school meals, promote healthier and more sustainable eating as well as promoting better eating habits for pupils.
Ian Waterworth, catering manager at Chantlers Primary School in Bury, said: “We wanted our pupils to really engage with the campaign, so we promoted it the week before it went live. We ran a full assembly on it, set up a display table of vegetables in the canteen and ran a taster session for our reception class, showing them how to prepare vegetables for cooking. The reaction was refreshingly positive and the stimulus of seeing vegetables in their rawest format certainly helped.
“From my perspective, Quorn is great. It’s so versatile and takes less time to cook. More importantly, though, the children loved both the meals and couldn’t tell the difference between the Quorn-based dishes and their meat equivalents.
“It showed that schools can easily provide more sustainable meals in the knowledge that children will enjoy them – and enjoyment really is important if you want a large uptake of school meals. It’s interesting to note that the older the children get, the more they are aware of environmental issues and what’s happening to the planet – and that’s really positive.”
Bury Catering introduced Quorn Burgers to Chantlers Primary School menu, with ‘fantastic’ results. On the day they featured on the menu, one quarter of the 120 meals that were pre-ordered featured the Quorn Burgers. A Quorn Roast dinner also now features on Bury Council’s three-week menu cycle.
Brett Wainwright, business unit controller for foodservice at Quorn, added: “We’re delighted that Chantlers Primary School pupils were so receptive to Quorn and thanks to Bury Catering and all the kitchen teams that participated, for inspiring their pupils to eat more healthily and sustainably.
“We’re committed to providing healthy, nutritious and sustainable food for future generations. Cooking with Quorn enables school caterers to provide pupils with great-tasting food at the same time as tackling climate change. It’s a win, win for everyone involved.”