As part of their Healthy Eating theme in food technology, pupils ventured out to procure ingredients direct from the supplier! During the visit to local food manufacturer, Natures Way Foods, pupils were educated on how the food chain operates from 'Field to Fork', before being let loose in the benchmarking kitchen to create individually a bespoke salad.
Expert Agronomist Ben Gilbert provided an overview on how fruit and salad components are grown and transported to manufacturers, with ingredients being sourced both locally and further afield. Ben talked passionately about the increasingly fast-paced modernisation in growing, harvesting and processing techniques in salad production, which sparked great debate. Thanks to some intelligent questioning, the Year 7 pupils were intrigued to learn about how the fresh produce industry aimed to minimise plastic packaging waste; the impact that transportation has on product quality; how much land is required to grow all of the ingredients used; the impact increasing automation has on the labour force and find out which are the most and least popular product lines sold. The pupils were in turn quizzed to test their knowledge surrounding the company's history, product range and customer base, which they passed with flying colours.
The pupils were then challenged to identify a variety of salad components, including both fresh produce and meal accompaniments such as bulgar wheat, red rice and feta cheese. Some of the mystery ingredients prove more recognisable than others, with the grated broccoli stumps, red striped beetroot and baby kale proving trickier to identify versus the more obvious staple salad ingredients. Pupils were actively encouraged to try new ingredients before creating their own version of a tasty salad bowl and designing an exciting name to complement their unique salad product. A tasty, nutritious and insightful ‘salad day’ was had by all.
