A school in Leeds, Richmond Hill Primary, have partnered with The Real Junk Food Project to highlight the vast amounts of wasted food across our communities whilst giving their pupils a great start to the day.
The school are giving all their pupils breakfast every morning for free whilst also bringing in much needed extra revenue through ‘a pay as you feel’ café and food stall – and now they want other schools in the city to join in!
Just before they closed for Christmas, Richmond Hill invited other schools from across Leeds to join them for breakfast and to sign up to ‘Fuel for School’. Nathan Atkinson, Headteacher at Richmond Hill Primary School and Adam Smith, Co -Founder of The Real Junk Food Project are hoping that the breakfast invitation will have inspired other schools to create a sustainable way of feeding their communities, reduce food waste and even create additional income through the Pay As You Feel model.
Fuel For School has two key objectives – 1. To highlight the importance of nutrition and the associated benefits linked to learning. 2. To highlight the vast amounts of wasted yet perfectly edible food across the local and wider communities.
Every year, supermarkets, wholesalers and other businesses throw away thousands of tons of perfectly edible food that they cannot sell, which costs them £100 per ton to dispose of. Meanwhile, due to the economic climate and other factors, many of the UK’s children are going to school hungry every day.
Studies amongst children have shown that breakfast can improve attainment, behaviour and grades, and many schools in our region and the rest of the country have noticed that hunger can be a major barrier to learning. Schools work hard in partnership with families to remove any potential barriers to learning for children but with tight budgets they are unable to achieve everything.
Nathan Atkinson told us “We wanted to give all our pupils breakfast at school, but without the waste food we simply wouldn’t have been able to do it due to financial restrictions. We now have a member of staff who, as part of their role, go to Hovis twice a week to collect 200 surplus loaves, and visit Morrisons in Harehills twice a week after 5pm to collect any yellow stickered reduced items that are left. We also collect fruit and veg from a wholesaler near school and a grocer shop in Chapel Allerton who allow us to take their perfectly edible waste food away. We are now able to provide every child at Richmond Hill with toast for breakfast each morning, and sell the rest in our café and stall which are open to the public. People come and take what they need, stay and have a cuppa with us and then Pay As They Feel. Since July we have saved 9 ½ tonnes of food from landfill which is an incredible amount!”
He adds “it is too early to tell if there has been an improvement in grades at the school but since September it has definitely had a positive impact on attendance and punctuality. Every morning our school day starts with 20 minutes of ‘thrive time’ where children eat their breakfast and staff do an ‘emotional register’ as well as an attendance one. This enables children to talk about how they are feeling, if they have had a good night at home etc. and allows staff to support pupils emotionally as necessary. It is proving to be a fantastic benefit to the children.”
For more information on Fuel for School and The Real Junk Food Project, please visit www.richmondhillleeds.co.uk and www.therealjunkfoodproject.org
