Sharp Lane Primary School visit development kitchens at Asda Home Office in Leeds to create Super Veg Heroes
With 80% of children shown to not eat enough vegetables, Asda stores across the country are supporting the ITV campaign ‘Veg Power – Eat Them to Defeat Them’. The aim of the initiative is to educate kids on the importance of eating more healthily, with Asda colleagues rallying behind the campaign to help inform and enlighten customers and their fellow colleagues on innovative ways to encourage children to eat more vegetables.
Asda House innovation and development chefs invited Sharp Lane Primary School into the Leeds based retailers head office to get them hands on in making healthy treats and Veg Hero characters. The school’s close to Asda Middleton and the class was joined by the store’s community champion Rachel Cunningham. The pupils from Sharp Lane Primary School put on their special chef hats and aprons to cook up some healthy treats and then made some fantastic Veg Heroes.
The youngsters were taught how to make roasted vegetable quesadillas by Asda chefs Mark Richmond and Andy Johnston and, while the wraps were being toasted in the ovens, they got to make their own Veg Superheroes and to take part in some fun product testing.
Sharp Lane Primary School Teaching assistant Elaine Birch said:
“The kids had a great time and were inspired by their visit, they absolutely loved it as you can see by all massive smiles on their faces – they didn’t want to leave. They really enjoyed making the vegetable quesadillas – and the chefs were great with them. They were so easy and quick to make and, as it was very hands-on. They were so engaged by the whole experience.”
Asda are also supporting the campaign with a range of in-store activities, including pop-up ‘Superhero Veg’ stations, with ‘Keep Em Peeled’ activity sheets for little shoppers – as well as veg progress sheet and stickers available for children to take home and document how many different fruits and vegetables they’ve tried and enjoyed. Recipe cards are also on offer to provide some fun and easy recipes to introduce more vegetables into children’s meals and achieve those 5 a-day-goals.
Rachel Cunningham, Asda Middleton Community Champion said:
“Our workshops and Superhero Veg activities are a great way of getting out the message that veggies are our friends and we hope that the children who came along will not only see that eating veg is a good thing but eat more of it!”
Veg Power is on a ten-year mission to turn around vegetable consumption in the UK and get every kid in the UK eating one more portion of veg each day. The campaign comes after research showed that one-third of primary school kids in the UK are overweight or obese, 80% of children don’t eat enough vegetables and 50% of parents say they have given up trying to get their kids to eat 5-a-day.
Head Innovation Chef at Asda, Mark Richmond said:
“It was great to see the children having a fun time, initiatives like this are really good and it’s getting children to learn about their five-a-day and to eat healthily which is so important, it was nice to see their enthusiasm for cooking. The children have been so creative making their own Veg Heroes and they all look brilliant.”
This post is based on a press release issued by Asda
