School Foods Trust secures £20m lottery funding for cookery clubs

The School Food Trust (SFT) has secured £20m of lottery funding to role out as many as 5,000 kids’ cookery clubs from September.

The SFT, set up by the Government to promote healthy eating in school following Jamie Oliver’s television series in 2005, will work with schools and local business to set up the clubs.

The SFT hopes the clubs, which will operate outside school hours, will enthuse children and parents alike, creating a new generation of amateur chefs with good food knowledge and better eating habits.

Dubbed Let’s Get Cooking, the scheme has already been piloted at 21 sites in Lancashire, Devon and Somerset since the start of the year.

Prue Leith, chair of the School Food Trust, said: “It’s our mission to make cooking cool and re-establish cooking skills which are important, valuable, and let’s not forget fun. Let’s Get Cooking will revive cookery skills on a national scale.”

Scheme partners include Prince’s Trust, Business in the Community, Magic Outcomes and the Improvement Foundation. 

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By Chris Druce

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