Cooking up change – celebrating a whole year of working in secondary schools across the UK
As our work giving more children access to plant-rich menus evolves, and we officially enter the secondary school sector, many questions have arisen about the unique challenges of feeding teenagers. We know firsthand that budgets are tight, lunchtimes are short, and teenagers are increasingly tempted by the offerings of fast food vendors just outside the school gates.
That’s where our School Plates programme springs into action. We’ve been incredibly busy running a brand new pilot, expanding our offering and adapting our programme to the needs of secondary school caterers. Here’s what we’ve learnt:
- Successfully integrating plants as the norm in school canteens goes above and beyond preparing a delicious dish, students need to actually want to buy it. And how do we do that? Through careful menu wording and behavioural nudges, promotion and education, taste testing, and collecting feedback from students to see if it’s the right dish for the school.
- Hands-on engagement works! We delivered our first ever cooking workshops with students (Cooking with Plants) this year. We saw them challenge their own perceptions and taste new flavours and textures, learning skills and healthy habits for life.
This leads us to our exciting news for the autumn term! We’ve created 20 brand new plant-based recipes for secondary schools that we’ll be launching later this year, aligned with the new School Food Standards and packed with beans! Here’s a sneak preview of one of our most popular dishes so far…
