Healthier Fleetwood Young Chef of the Year shows how local communities are working together

The search for the Healthier Fleetwood Young Chef of the Year has proved to be a great success with pupils and teaching staff from the Town’s primary schools.

Nearly 400 children from Year 5 have taken part in the challenge over the Summer term with many going on to the final stages, designing a menu and preparing a meal for the hero.

The equipment and resources for the challenge have been provided by the Healthier Fleetwood partnership as part of the initiative to improve residents’ health and wellbeing. The programme was designed by nutritional therapist and author Katharine Tate supported by renown chef Harry Lomas MBE.

The winners from each school will now go forward to the grand final which will be held at Twelve Restaurant in October. On the same week-end all the finalists will prepare a meal for their family and share their experience of the challenge to invited guests from the community.

Among those going through will be Ray Sampson from Chaucer School who summed up “I have enjoyed being part of the competition, looking through different menus on the internet and choosing the meals that I cooked at school for my teachers and peers. My favourite part of the competition was making my lemon mousse. My teachers and friends said it was 'YUM, YUM'. I am looking forward to representing Chaucer for the Young Chef of the Year.”

Support from the teaching staff has played a big part in the challenge.

Rachel Johnson, of Charles Saer School said:

“The children have learnt a lot about diet, nutrition and shopping and they have all thoroughly enjoyed the experience.” Richard Howarth from Shakespeare School added, “The cooking was a brilliant success and I was amazed at what the children produced.”

One of the aims of the Healthier Fleetwood partnership is to encourage residents to look at the benefits of a balanced diet and nutrition, cooking more for themselves and what can be achieved on a budget.

A spokesman for Healthier Fleetwood said:

“It’s about getting back to the basics of good housekeeping and by starting with young people we can educate them to improve their lives and their families. The schools already do a great deal of work in this area, we were delighted to provide additional resources through this challenge to support the message. The children also made some delicious meals.”

For further information please see the website www.fleetwoodyoungchef.co.uk

There are a number of projects taking place across Lancashire and South Cumbria as part of the Prevention and Population Health work stream.