Welsh Veg in Schools
Welsh Veg in Schools is a pilot project co-ordinated by Food Sense Wales that aims to get more organically produced Welsh veg into primary school meals across Wales.
Working with partners that include Castell Howell, Farming Connect Horticulture as well as a host of enthusiastic growers, the Welsh Veg in Schools project is helping to get more locally produced organic vegetables into school lunches.
Welsh Veg in Schools is about redesigning supply chains to make them fairer and more resilient. It also builds on the commitment from Welsh Government to ensure that every primary aged child in Wales is offered a free school meal and that the food used to produce that meal, where possible, comes from local suppliers. With only around a quarter of a portion of veg per head of population being currently produced in Wales, Welsh Veg in Schools has the potential to increase the market in order to help realise this commitment.
Food Sense Wales first started exploring the procurement of locally produced veg with the ‘Courgette Pilot’ – a pilot project that involved one grower and one wholesaler and delivered nearly 1 tonne of courgettes into primary schools in Cardiff during Food and Fun in the summer of 2022. The courgette pilot was facilitated by Food Cardiff, the capital’s local food partnership, helping to bring all the partners together, including Blas Gwent, Cardiff Council Education Catering and Cardiff & Vale University Health Board public health dietetics as well as Castell Howell.
In 2023, with the support of the Welsh Government’s Backing Local Firms Fund, this procurement project developed into the first phase of Welsh Veg in Schools working with three growers across three local authority areas and supported by co-ordinators from the local food partnerships in Cardiff, Carmarthenshire and Monmouthshire.
Now, in the Spring of 2024, Food Sense Wales has been awarded additional funding from Bridging The Gap – a programme led by Sustain, Growing Communities and Alexandra Rose Charity – to further scale up the work and leverage an even wider network of expertise and support. This phase of action research will work with more growers and local authorities; explore how to bridge the gap between the costs of conventional product and sustainably produced Welsh veg; and test a number of approaches to establish what a ‘sustainable investment scheme’ could look like. The aim is to develop a model that is expandable across the Welsh public sector.
By supporting agroecological organic farming, this project is giving growers and farmers a new or alternative key income stream as well as offering opportunities for children to connect with nature and farming through visiting local growers.
Food Sense Wales is already researching future funding streams to develop this work beyond March 2025 to include more growers, local authorities and wholesalers. If you’re interested in getting involved with the Welsh Veg in Schools project, you can contact Food Sense Wales by emailing foodsensewales@wales.nhs.uk
You can read more here and watch a video that explains the project below: