IN THE COMMUNITY

As part of our commitment to promoting 'Healthy Eating' to schoolchildren, we commissioned and published 'When Sammy met Sally'.

This sixteen page fold-out booklet features a boy squirrel who eats all the wrong things and a girl squirrel, who loves fresh fruit and vegetables. Sammy gets stuck in the entrance to his tree house and Sally shows him the error of his ways.

Concerned with the unhealthy nature of our childrens’ diets, Michelin star winning chef Andrew Fairlie, has been working alongside us to promote ‘Healthy Living’.

He has been visiting Scottish schools for some three years now, an initiative recently taken up by Jamie Oliver, south of the border. He has also worked with the authority to develop a range of school meals that are specifically designed to appeal to children, yet are healthy and straighfoward to prepare.

St Margaret’s High School in Airdrie was recently the scene of a ‘Food and Drink challenge’. The competition, which was designed to promote healthy eating and business enterprise within schools, was a joint venture between Scottish Food and Drink, Somerfield and ourselves.

Some 250 pupils of 12 to 14 year olds were organised in groups of 4 or 5, and were given 4 weeks to come up with a new potato based recipe, design a pack and marketing material for Bartlett’s Rooster potatoes.

Appropriately, their efforts were judged by a team that included the Michelin star winning chef Andrew Fairlie, of ‘Andrew Fairlie @ Gleneagles’ and the winning team traveled to Gleneagles to see their recipe cooked by Andrew himself. They also saw the finished dish photographed for use on the pack that they designed and which is on sale exclusively in Somerfield’s Scottish stores while stocks last.

This year sees a new sponsorship venture with our local school, St Philip's. We are supporting the establishment of a garden allotment to be tended by children with behavioural difficulties. The produce will be supplied to the school kitchens and needy local residents.