Cairngorms Food for Life

Cairngorms National Park

Cairngorms Food for Life is a local food project being delivered by the Cairngorms National Park Authority (CNPA) and overseen by Soil Association Scotland as part of its Food for Life programme of work. It receives funding from a range of sources, including for example LEADER.

The vision of the project is to:

“increase the availability and use of local, fresh and seasonal produce for both residents and visitors in the Cairngorms National Park, and in so doing to seek long-term improvements to our health, environment and economy.”

The project engages individuals from across the community to contribute to and be part of the project. This includes the implementation of the development plan (available on the CNPA website) which is being overseen by a group of individuals from the primary production, processing, retail, hospitality and tourism sectors.

This vision will be achieved through implementing a series of actions:

• Understanding the local food sector by carrying out an audit of the food and drink produced in the park.
• Improving the distribution of local produce will be achieved by producing a detailed feasibility study on distribution needs and potential solutions.
• Improving the supply and availability of local produce by increasing production through land-use and supporting diversification, increasing processing by evaluating processing infrastructure and indentifying the barriers.
• Encouraging caterers to use fresh, local, seasonal and organic ingredients through use and promotion of the Food for Life Catering Mark.
• Increasing demand for local food by developing a local food campaign to promote the local food available to residents and tourists.
• Developing food tourism by improving the web based marketing of local food to tourists and exploring the business opportunity for food tourism.
• Developing skills and increasing collaboration through the Cairngorms Food Forum and exploring training opportunities.
• Engaging schools and communities by developing a food education programme for schools and community initiatives to encourage residents to grow their own food.

Progress so far:

• A market intelligence assessment has reported on availability and consistency of supply of local produce, a high interest in initiatives to promote local produce and importance of food & drink to the local economy.
• A Local Food & Drink guide has been produced to promote the local food available to tourists and local residents.
• A Producers Directory detailing the local food producers in the area, their produce and delivery information has been produced to encourage caterers to choose local.
• Events to link producers and chefs/caterers have been held.
• A Food for Life Development Officer is delivering a pilot regional schools and education programme across the Park.
• Community initiatives such as ‘Grow Cairngorms’ aimed at increasing the number of residents growing their own food are being developed.

http://www.cairngorms.co.uk/look-after/farmland/food

Case Study – Education programme

The Cairngorms Food for Life (CFFL) Education programme is a pilot food education project for Soil Association. Food for Life Scotland is focused on the practical and logistic side of providing health and sustainable school meals alongside better food education.

The Food for Life catering mark sets a standard for the public plate through bronze, silver and gold awards which graduate from 70% of meals prepared with fresh ingredients and free from 12 undesirable additives in the bronze level through to increased procurement of organic and high welfare standard ingredients in the gold award. This has been shown to be completely achievable within catering budgets in East Ayrshire. Highland Council are in transition from bronze to silver award for meals delivered to their 173 primary schools.

The CFFL education programme seeks to link this high standard of food provision to the learning about food in the classroom. It links national food education providers with the schools in CNPA and develops other partnerships which can contribute to increased food knowledge for children.

Getting Gardens Growing

• With the support of Education Scotland a bespoke growing course for teachers in Cairngorms delivered expertise on fruit and vegetable varieties suitable to the local area and how to plan for produce within the short growing season but out with school holidays. Teachers from 14 Primary and High schools in Highland and Moray took advantage of this. An online group to exchange experiences and share best practices has been set up for both teachers and pupils and events planned for outside the growing season are planned to maintain knowledge and interest. This programme will be extended in other areas of the park in subsequent years of the project.

• Some growing projects need an extra bit of practical help to get them going, so Food for Life has joined forces with a local apprentice scheme run by Highlands Small Communities Housing Trust to help schools create or improve their food-growing gardens. Growing spaces provide an excellent interactive outdoor classroom which encourages physical activity, as well as providing vegetables, fruit and herbs for the school canteen. The apprentices spend three days a week in a local college learning vocational skills and undertake practical work experience for the rest of the week. So far, 14 local apprentices have helped three schools with a range of practical work including erecting fencing and creating raised beds.

Cooking projects

• Food for Life is working with the Healthier Scotland Focus on Food Cooking Bus to introduce pupils to a range of local, healthy and sustainable ingredients, and teach young children the basic skills for making simple nutritious dishes. The bus visited Aviemore for a week in May and delivered cooking sessions to 130 children from eight small rural schools. The Cooking Bus also delivered instruction for 16 teachers to deliver cooking skills to children from P1-7.
• Cairngorms Food for Life has also teamed up with the Academy of Culinary Arts to deliver their highly successful Chefs Adopt a School programme which takes an interactive approach to exploring taste, food through all the senses, healthy eating, food identification and preparation. Training has been given by the academy for 19 local chefs, and to date nine sessions have been delivered by the chefs for over 200 pupil sessions.

Farm Visits

• Cairngorms Food for Life has worked with Royal Highland Education Trust to deliver a very successful Countryside, Food & Farming Day at Alvie Estate in June. This was designed to give 85 children from the primary schools in the Kingussie High School catchment area an idea of how food is produced in the Cairngorms National Park and Scotland in general both now and in the past. Children got the opportunity to have hands on activities at each of five stations which covered beef, lamb, venison production, grain uses and gathering/cooking food in the past. This was a great opportunity to learn about food in Scotland at both a local and national level.

 

The next 2 years of the project will draw out more links with the local authority catering services to help understanding of food come right into the classroom and school catering kitchens.

Further information can be read at http://www.soilassociation.org/foodforlifescotland/education