Fab Food Primary Schools Programme
Fab Food is a ground-breaking initiative designed to support primary schools in reducing food waste. It was developed in partnership with Sainsbury’s as part of the Waste less, Save more scheme.
We trialled then finalised a step-by-step process, working with pupils and staff in Swadlincote primary schools.
Schools can work through it themselves or they can invite us to work alongside them.
Process:
- A Food Waste Audit is carried out by pupils, with staff support, to see how much food is being wasted, what is wasted most often and why. Pupils and staff produce a report of findings to share with the wider school community.
- An Action Plan, based on the report, is written by pupils and staff.
- Food Awareness Week: school runs activities and lessons in school - these can include campfire cooking, food tasting sessions, magic sessions and other activities to make saving food fun and memorable.
- A follow-up Food Waste Audit - finding out if we have saved any food.
The action plan is varied to suit each school. In some schools, we found that free fruit and other food meant a lot was wasted. Sharing free fruit throughout the school and allowing pupils to say how much or little they want of everything on the menu (rather than standard portion sizes) helped save waste.
If you would like to reduce food waste in your school, please download the Fab Food schools pack (pdf, 4.6mb). It includes a description of the project and how to run it, plus worksheets and activities to make reducing food waste fun and memorable. If you open the PDF in PowerPoint you will be able to edit it / adapt it for your own group.
Other activities organised as part of the original Fab Food project included inviting ‘Magic Tim’ to create a magic show. We worked closely with Tim on the main topics and he used magic tricks to remind children and adults about saving food and how much money that can also save. Teachers valued the experience, as shown here. The clip includes the testimonials followed by more clips from the Menu Magic Show itself. (final 2.5 minutes). It was a memorable part of the Waste less, Save more project and showed how much learning can be achieved through fun.
The nine primary schools involved in the trial experienced a food waste reduction of between 7% and 37%.
Sharing the results, methods, resources and ideas are a key part of the project. We would love feedback and any suggestions to update the resources (which will be credited if used).
The Fab Food and Menu Magic projects both triumphed in the national Green Apple Environmental Awards, winning Local Authority Champion and Gold Winner in the food and drink category.
To find out more, email rosliston@southderbyshire.gov.uk and put ‘Fab Food’ as the subject, or telephone 01283 535039 (answerphone)
You can also contact us via the Swadlincote Waste less, Save more Facebook page or the WLSM Facebook group.
