Natures Way Foods (NWF) is celebrating five years of its popular Field to Fork education campaign.
To mark the occasion, local primary schools were invited to enter a competition and create a tasty salad recipe that children could make themselves.
North Mundham Primary School from Chichester was awarded first prize and £2,000 for kitchen equipment.
A group of pupils from the school recently visited the company for a salad 'masterclass' with development chef Simon Martin.
Sarah Baldock, NWF category and innovation director, said: “We are delighted to celebrate five years of our Field to Fork education campaign. We ran the competition last autumn to encourage children to enjoy and experiment with salad ingredients outside the traditional summer season.
'Our tours are always popular because they help to bring elements of the national curriculum to life and enhance the childrens’ learning experiences outside the classroom. Field to Fork is a key part of our community programme and has helped to build very good relationships with our local schools.”
Birdham CofE Primary School in Birdham, West Sussex, were awarded runners-up, and they too attended a masterclass.
The competition was open to local primary school children in years 4 and 5, and the winning recipe, Rainbow Salad, was chosen because it was colourful, attractive, and used a good mix of salad ingredients as well as carbohydrates.
In the masterclass, the children were given the opportunity to make their own dishes to take home, and learnt about fruit and vegetables, healthy eating and the seasonality of different foods.
Over the years, more than 550 local schoolchildren have visited the NWF factory and the surrounding fields, and learned about salad growing and the journey from Field to Fork.
The firm's education campaign also features a website for pupils to use in class and at home.
NWF is a major employer in the Chichester area, with over 800 staff and three factories in Selsey, Runcton and Merston.
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