UK premiere of Film Inc.

I am looking forward to watching "Food Inc" tomorrow evening. Stella McCartney is hosting a preview screening to support her campaign for meat free mondays.

Am planning to take my laptop along so I can post a review and some snaps as soon as I have seen it.

Click here to find UK screenings

Product placement - no junk food allowed!

There is a report in todays Guardian saying that government has decided to not allow high fat, salt or sugar foods, (HFSS) alcohohol and gambling with in product placement.

This is great news as it means children will now have some protection from aggressive junk food marketing.It means there is now an acceptance that children do watch TV outside of children's programming and that marketing of HFSS foods is detrimental to children's health.

I think that the reason the government came to this view is the huge numbers of people who took action. All those emails and letters were crucial - so thanks very much to every one who supported the childrens food campaign.

I am still opposed to product placement and think it is a sad day for British broadcasting. However I am hoping that now junk food, alcohol and gambling are taken out it will now be no longer economically viable. I am going to a seminar this afternoon organised by Voice of the Viewer and Listener to find out more.

Todays school lunch and some thoughts about selling school food to staff

Whilst I was making my way to the school hall for my lunch today a colleague passed me and asked if the sandwich lady had arrived yet. Now normally when ever anyone tells me that there school dinners are great my one question is - do the school staff eat them? If the meals are fantastic there is usually a healthy staff take up. This got me thinking as our school dinners are good yet staff rarely pass the hall to see, let alone eat. Partly this is due to pressure of time as staff are often busy setting up for the afternoon and of course some times you need a break far away from the kids.But maybe caterers could do more to promote their meals to staff? It must be a pretty captive market judging by the amount of staff who visit local shops.

In this current economic climate caterers are going to have to think out of the box. Cultivating a school staff trade would surely help with the bottom line. One enterprising secondary school in Bristol I visited which provided outstandingly good food, used to sell trays of food to busy teachers to take home to serve their families in the evening. It isnt going to solve the funding crisis facing the school meals service but as that well known grocers says,"every little helps!"

Prince Charles and his comment to me on junk food advertising

"When you think of all the effort the government have put into banning tobacco and smoking it makes you wonder why they haven't done the same with food"

I got the chance to have a quick word with Prince Charles at the Chefs Adopt a school anniversary event. He made his feelings pretty clear where he stood with regard to the promotion of junk food.

Pictures from Chefs Adopt a School anniversary party

Chefs Adopt a School

In 1990,long before the dreadful state of school food came to public knowledge The Academy of Culinary Arts were concerned about the terrible state of food knowledge in primary schools. Alarmed at the lack of cookery lessons and high levels of ignorance about food and where it came from they set up "Chefs adopt a school". Their members visited schools, showed different foods, demonstrated cooking skills and captured the children's imaginations. They are currently working with 21,000 children every year.

Today they are celebrating their twentieth anniversary with a special cookery session at St Georges School in London. Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall will be present and their will be a short reception.

They have run a brilliant scheme and deserve credit for their passionate lobbying of government which has seen the return of cooking to the school timetable.

Will take my camera with me and will try to post some pictures of todays celebrations later on.

Any teachers looking for good quality cooking support in primary schools clink on the link in the first para.They run an excellent programme which I think is free to schools.

Rob Rees is the new Chair of the School Food Trust

I am really pleased that Rob Rees - otherwise known as the Cotswold Chef is to become the next Chair of the School Food Trust. Rob is Director of a successful consultancy company and is the Chief Executive of the Wiggly Worm charity, which uses food projects to help and rehabilitate vulnerable and disadvantaged people. Rob was a founder member of the School Food Trust Board in 2005 and is also a Non-Executive Director of Gloucestershire Primary Care Trust, a Board Member for Visit England and former Board Member of the Food Standards Agency.

He understands the huge tasks confronting the Trust and I have every confidence he will give great leadership and will fight enthusiastically to get the school food revolution spread through out the land.

You can read more about him on the School Food Trust website