The Eat Culture, Education Catering team has been working with Nottingham schools as part of the national Eat Them To Defeat Them campaign. The pupils at Southglade Primary School, have been enjoying some fantastic displays, tasters and stickers.
Headteacher Alison Thomas said: "The children have been really enthused about Eat Them To Defeat Them. We introduced our ‘Veg Ambassadors’ at school assembly and talked about the featured vegetable of the week.
“The ‘Veg Ambassadors’ have promoted the tasters with their peers. Being child-led the campaign has worked very well for us. We sent the taster recipe home each week in a letter to parents so that children could try it at home. Our staff have been very onboard with trying a taster and getting a sticker too.”
According to Veg Power, 89% of children are not eating enough vegetables, with a third eating less than one portion a day. Meanwhile, 45% of parents reported struggling to get their children to eat vegetables.
Veg Power is on a ten-year mission to turn around vegetable consumption in the UK. Its mission is to get every child in the UK eating one more portion of vegetables each day with their campaign run in partnership with ITV.
April Baxley, a teacher at Southglade Primary School, added: “The children have really enjoyed Eat Them To Defeat Them and they have been very excited about it. More of the children have been trying the tasters than not. We’ve had brilliant support from the catering team in making the tasters for us.
“With our classroom charts we’re tracking who has tried all the tasters so that we can enter those children in for a raffle to win a children’s cookbook. We made carrot cake as a class taster during carrot week, the children couldn’t believe you can really have carrot in a cake. They enjoyed the television advert where the vegetables come out the ground and go on the rampage, too.”