Health Education Trust (HET) has been involved with the Food for Life programme since 2007 as one of the original four partners. The programme is all about transforming food culture – making healthy, tasty and sustainable meals the norm, reconnecting people with where their food comes from, teaching them how it’s grown and cooked, and championing the importance of well-sourced ingredients.
HET brings to the programme its expertise around whole setting approach, setting up and running a School Nutrition Action Group to develop a food policy and action plan and to improve the dining room environment. These areas are fundamental to the programme’s consistent approach to transforming the food culture in schools and other settings.
The programme has now reached thousands of schools, nurseries, hospitals and care homes, helping these organisations build knowledge and skills through a ‘whole setting approach.’ In this way it has engaged pupils and parents, teachers and doctors, caterers and carers, and the wider community to create a powerful voice for long-term change.
The findings from the independent researchers evaluating the pilot project from 2007-2011 have been published in Good Food for All. It found that the Food for Life Partnership had an impact on education; children’s health; tackling inequalities; local enterprise and sustainability.