Northern Ireland Education Authority gives school meals ‘fresh look’
This new direction for the school meals service follows 18 months of engagement with a range of stakeholders including pupils, parents, principals and staff.
Speaking at a launch event held between Banbridge Academy and St Mary’s Primary School Banbridge Sara Long, EA chief executive, said: “Our engagement brought together the views of over 5,000 people. What was most important to us was the views of the pupils and we are delighted that the new branding and new food offering reflects what they want.
“Our focus as a catering service is to offer food our children and young people will enjoy. Our new menus offer choice, with healthy nutritional food available every day in our schools. By listening to our young people, we believe we can encourage more pupils into the school canteen.”
Primary schoolchildren will see the introduction of ‘The Lunch Bunch’, a colourful character-based brand that will also bring fun learning about food into the classroom.
Stephen Briggs, the EA’s head of catering, added: “One of the key messages from the primary schoolchildren we spoke with, was that whole fun element around food and cooking. And that is where the idea of having characters came from. The five characters of the Lunch Bunch are all relatable to children in our schools and they all have different food passions.
“The ‘Whole School Approach’ to school catering is based around great tasting, nutritious food in the dining hall, raising awareness and education in the classroom, and finally encouraging children to get involved in cooking at home.
"Our philosophy when it comes to school meals can be summed up by our new motto, ‘Eat Well, Live Well, Learn Well’, and we are very excited about how ‘The Lunch Bunch’ can help us do those three things.”
The new brand, ‘Let’s Eat’, is centred around a more maturing audience while the menu offering looks at adding more convenient, healthy and tasty options. The ‘Flavours of the World’ range sees ten new dishes added to the menu of every post-primary school, with pupils’ taste buds being taken on a 'flavoursome tour of the world'.