School Food Trust in healthy eating push

The School Food Trust is launching a national education push aimed at teaching schools and caterers how to market healthy school meals to students.

The body, a partner of the Government’s Change4Life anti-obesity initiative, has enlisted Olympic silver and World gold medallist Colin Jackson to act as its ambassador for an event being held today (September 29).

The one-day event, attended by local authorities, school representatives and caterers from around the UK, will feature talks by marketing experts, including ASDA head of planning and programmes, corporate affairs Karen Todd.

It is also aiming to capitalise on the London 2012 Olympics by showing schools how to use Olympic-themed campaigns to attract the attention of students.

School Food Trust director of communications Chris Wainwright says it will use the marketing insight and experience of ASDA to help educate schools on how to market directly to students.

“One of the challenges local authorities and schools have told us is that it’s all well and good to change the food in schools, but not enough children are eating them,” he says.

“So they want to professionalise how they market their services and better compete with the High Street. The event is about bringing together local authorities and teaching them some new tricks on how to effectively market what they sell.”

The body will also use the event to launch its new marketing tool, Marketing and Design Generator (MADGe), an online resource which features themes and campaigns that schools can use to market school meals, activities and promotions taking place in the school dining room. 

The School Food Trust was established by the Department for Education and Skills in September 2005. Its remit is to transform school food and food skills, promote the education and health of children and young people and improve the quality of food in schools.

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