The Children’s Food Trust has joined forces with buying group YPO and school food marketing experts Elygra to launch its Canteen Rescue campaign, aimed at helping to turn canteen nightmares into dining room dreams.
The campaign calls on teachers and pupils to nominate their school canteens which have seen better days for the chance to win a prize worth more than £10k.
The winning school will bag £6.5 worth of furniture or equipment to transform their dining space, along with £3k worth of marketing kit and customer service training to help market their meals.
Linda Cregan, Children’s Food Trust CEO, said, “Children tell us that where they eat is actually more important to them than what they’re eating. Put another way, if we invested as much time into creating great spaces for eating in school as we do into cooking tasty, healthy food for children, we’d see even more kids wanting to give healthier school food a try.
“High street restaurants don’t put up with poor lighting or cramped tables, so why should school dining rooms? This is a fantastic opportunity to help more pupils create a space that works for them.”
Darren Byford from YPO said, “We want to help schools make their dining room dreams become reality – this prize might be the final piece of a really big redesign, or it might all a school needs to make smaller changes that will make a huge difference. Whatever the project, taking part in Canteen Rescue really shows how your school is listening to what children want from their lunchtime.”
Nigel Argyle from Elygra added, “There are so many great ways to make more of your dining space to promote great school food so we’re delighted to be supporting the Canteen Rescue competition.”
Children’s Food Trust's previous research with young people, by consumer research agency, 2CV, found that:
• The look and feel of the canteen (decor, lighting, mood & staff behaviour) can be a barrier to take up of school meals
• Canteen layout has a significant impact on the number of young people who opt for school meals
• Young people often feel the canteen atmosphere and environment is unwelcoming and uninspiring
• That poor canteen décor, lighting, overcrowding and mess can all put young people off spending time there