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The LACA Main Event started on Wednesday with a regional round up, which saw LACA’s regional members each sharing with delegates a best practice case study from the last 12 months.

Dietician Nicole Madden, from Cambridgeshire Catering Services was first up representing the East of England region. Madden posed the question, ‘will everything really taste like chicken if fat and sugar is removed?’

She urged delegates to “get back to food being something we enjoy” and to move away from looking at foods as “good and bad” by beginning to think instead about balance.

Following on from Nicole was the East of England region represented by Jane Faulks from Leicester City Council and Jeanette Kirk from Derbyshire County Council.

They talked about successful initiatives in their areas that aimed to engage children with food, highlighting the ‘grow your own grub’ scheme and the sausage competition, which was designed for National School Meals Week (NSMW).

Brad Pearce, managing director of CATERed Ltd, from the LACA South West Region spoke passionately about creating a generation of children who enjoy food, noting that it’s also good for business. He also spoke about the challenges of menu development for children and having to utilise images to properly engage children.

Roger Denton, LACA South East Regional Chair and Paul Harris, Unilever Food Solutions, spoke about creating theme days to help with engagement and using them as part of training and development courses. They explained how this had helped with planning and keeping costs down in the South East region.

Welsh regional representatives Judith Gregory and Christina Powdrill from Cardiff Council presented a video that showcased Special Educational Needs (SEN) School, Riverbank Primary, the winners of the Cost Sector Catering Care Catering Award 2014.

The video highlighted the progress children had achieved from initiatives such as the magic circle and the picture exchange system, which were designed to encourage children to try more foods.

Irene Clarke, chair of Northern Ireland School Caterers Association was invited to share details of the positive impact of a ‘Stay on Site’ scheme that had been implemented at one school to stop children using local fast food outlets and start using the on-site facilities.

She spoke of the concerns from local businesses who feared an “economic meltdown” as a result of loss of business from school children. The policy saw uptake rise from 44.3% in October 2013 to 63.6% this year.

Jackie Campbell, district manager, Dudley MBC spoke about the impact of providing a free breakfast in the West Midlands region. The Early Birds breakfast scheme at Wren’s Nest Primary was designed so no child starts the day hungry, in order to improve attainment and attendance. The school now gets around 140 children at breakfast on a daily breakfast.

Michael Hales, head of contract services for the London Borough of Tower Hamlets rounded off the morning with a video showcasing the central production kitchen that helps provide meals to 101 out of 106 schools in the borough. He spoke about the introduction of UIFSM in the area and how implementing the scheme threw up challenges, which have now been conquered.