ISS hold Food Education Event Day for pupils in Richmond

The event, which took place at the town hall in Twickenham, welcomed pupils and teachers from several of the schools ISS serves in Richmond. Parents and members of the local community, including the Mayor, also joined the event designed to educate children about the importance of eating good quality, healthy food.Over 250 pupils attended the event whilst the Mayor of Richmond, Councillor Martin Seymour, took a spin on the ‘smoothie bike’.

The ISS Education Catering Team took the opportunity to show pupils where the ingredients in their school lunches come from, through providing food information, activities, tasters and opportunities to meet various ISS partners and suppliers.

Fruit carving, sushi making, broad bean planting, smoothie bike riding, mystery box challenges and blind tasting all contributed to an action-packed day for all of the attendees. The pedal-powered smoothie bike encouraged lots of exercise to ensure the smoothie ingredients were properly blended.

Partners such as the Soil Association (who award the Food for Life Catering Mark), Bidvest, Yeo Valley and School Food Matters, joined the action.The day included competitions with prizes including a fruit and vegetable hamper and a bicycle.

Pupils from Orlean’s Primary School in Richmond commented:

“I liked watching people carving the fruit into frogs and mice. I would like to try it at home.” Sasha

“I learned that popcorn could be healthy! Better for you than some cereal!”Georgie

“All the challenges were hard but fun. All the information was great.”Huberto

Steve Kemp, Divisional Director at ISS Education commented: “It was fantastic to see so many children engaging with the activities at our Food Education Event Day – the atmosphere was buzzing and I was really impressed with how much the children knew about their fruits and vegetables! 

My colleagues and I were delighted to be able to host the event and to see such a great turnout. Our local team has worked really hard to achieve the Gold Food for Life Catering Mark and these events have been a great opportunity for us to show schools the work we’ve done around food education and sourcing. 

We’re always keen to do what we can to support schools with education around food, health and wellbeing. From the feedback we’ve had so far, it seems that FEED was really beneficial to our young guests.”