Local Food Company Launch Scheme in Schools

Local Food Company Launch Scheme to get Vegetables into Schools

Balfour Junior School families say ‘yes’ to more veggies to raise money for healthy eating projects.

An innovative scheme to encourage children and parents to eat more locally-grown seasonal vegetables is being launched at Balfour Junior School on the 28th of March.

Brighton-based local food company, We Love Local, is launching the scheme as a not-for-profit part of the business in order to raise awareness of the importance of supporting local growers and eating more fresh seasonal vegetables.

The company has been operating for nearly a year, delivering boxes of fresh produce and other regional speciality products to homes and catering businesses across the city. The company owners are all devoted foodies who are passionate about supporting farmers and producers in the local area.

Managing partner, Melissa Love, said, “We work really closely with the farmers and producers we buy from, paying them fair prices over and above what they could expect from a supermarket. Of course there are national companies doing this now, and even Tesco offers organic boxes of vegetables, but we supply truly local food to all of our customers.”

We Love Local hopes this new initiative will get children and families interested in where the vegetables they eat come from and will enjoy receiving their ‘lucky dip’ bags of seasonal produce. “We are all used to being able to buy whatever we want whether it is in season or not. We will be encouraging those who take part with weekly newsletters and inspiring recipes,” says Melissa.

The scheme at Balfour Junior School is being co-ordinated by the Parents’ & Teachers’ Association who have christened the initiative, the Balfour Farmers’ Bag. Every bag sold will raise a pound for the school, which will go towards organising activities and events based around growing and eating healthy food.
Parent and organiser, Teresa Perez, is looking forward to the first delivery of bags after Easter. “We are so pleased to have signed up for the scheme and we are planning to involve the children as much as possible.”

The launch includes a drawing competition to provide a logo for We Love Local to use across the city and the vegetable bags will contain different veggies superhero stickers for the children to collect each week.

Click this link to find out how to get veg into your school.
This is a PDF file and it will download to your computer.

28th APRIL 2008