CONTACT Jacqui Grainger Food Education Officer 01225 787917 Email

food for life

What is Food for Life?

Food for Life is a partnership project that aims to raise the standard of school meals across nine primary schools in Bath and North East Somerset.

It aims to educate children, parents and caterers about the benefits of a healthy balanced diet, exploring the links between the foods we eat and the world we live in. We focused on healthy eating across the whole school, and so worked with the whole school community - staff, governors, caterers, parents and so on.

The project ran for a year from February 05 to February 06 and almost 1,000 children took part in classroom workshops, assemblies and family cookery sessions. The children also took part in a road show to show members of their community what they had learnt. This culminated in the Food for Life Fair at Green Park Station on Thursday 16 March 2006.

What did we achieve?

Pupils, parents, teachers and catering staff were extremely positive about the project and many have adapted their menus to include better quality, locally sourced meat and vegetables with a better choice of fruit and yoghurt and so on. To sustain the benefits of the Food For Life project, many of the schools have set up a School Nutrition Action Group (SNAG) so that members of the school community can continue to push for healthier options in schools.

Final report on the project - click here

Background - how did the project come about?

Since the National Statutory Requirements regarding the quality of children’s diets were reintroduced in April 2001, there has been an increasing focus on the importance of healthy school meals and educating children about healthy eating.

The Food for Life project has developed since 2002 when the Soil Association’s school meals advisor began thinking about ways to improve school meals and met with other local organisations to do something positive at a local level.

Which schools took part?

This is a partnership project: Bath and NE Somerset Council, Envolve, Primary Care Trust, Soil Association
For more information: contact Jacqui Grainger at Envolve on 01225 750921 and visit www.foodforlifeuk.org