Last term Oldham Council was awarded a prestigious ‘Gold Food for Life Catering Mark’ thanks to the high quality meals being served in schools across the borough.
The Education Catering Team is only the third local authority in the country to achieve this honour – and the first in the North-West.
Excitingly our very own Manchester Veg People is supplying some of the top quality local organic veg that has put Oldham on the map. Over the spring and summer term, leeks, kale, and courgettes have been among the veg going from the fields of MVP grower members: Glebelands City Grower, Moss Brook Growers and Brookhouse Farm, fresh to the plates of children across Oldham.
To celebrate this exciting achievement with the schools, we will be running a seasonal competition this autumn with Oldham’s Catering Team and MVP. School chefs and children will be invited to work together to come up with a tasty recipe (using one of Moss Brook Growers pumpkins), and a beautifully carved pumpkin.
Winners will get a chance to visit one of the local farms and their recipe will be featured in a healthy seasonal recipes book being produced by Oldham’s catering team in early 2015.
Exciting stuff – well done Oldham for leading the way!
Our work with the Oldham catering team is part of a pilot that Manchester Veg People and Kindling are running to support the public sector to make their menus more sustainable. We have some funding to work with other bodies until the end of March 2015 - so if you are interested get in touch as soon as possible (helen@kindling.org.uk).