Surrey Environmental Action Schools were treated to presentations in their October meeting by two companies trying to address sustainability in food waste in their own way. First of all, Andy King from Limetrack showed us how his company was using technology to monitor food waste generated in schools and catering businesses. Andy believes passionately that data can drive change and by knowing exactly where your food waste is generated and exactly how much each area is making, this can be specifically targeted. Limetrack have developed smart bins to do this and can save companies waste, emissions, and money. Our local Sustainability hub, Zero Carbon Guildford use them. If you are interested, contact [email protected]

Next, Colette from Proveg spoke to us about the amazing work they are doing promoting sustainable and plant-based meals in schools. Proveg offers guidance and support to local authorities, and private and school caterers across the UK through their ‘School Plates’ scheme. They are a non-profit that offers their amazing support free of charge. If you can get your regional school caterers together in one kitchen, they could even run a training session for chefs in providing an amazing, sustainable menu of proven meals that pupils will eat.  The first thing to do is to download their guide and recipe booklet and get in touch with your catering team.  

Finally, to support this at my school and for our Surrey team, I have produced a PSHE resource that aims to engage pupils with food issues and some of the misconceptions and difficult issues about food choices. It also includes a game I devised where pupils have to design their own menu for the week, keeping a set of scores for health, protein levels, cost, and sustainability. I've put a non-specific set of resources for this here. Any school or not-for-profit organisation is welcome to use this if they wish. For any other enquiries please go via UKKSN: [email protected]