London’s New Covent Garden Market (NCGM) celebrated its Feeling Good: Eating Well joint project between Covent Garden Market Authority, Wandsworth Children’s Services and Farming and Country Side Education (FACE) last week.
The project’s aim was to encourage nine Battersea schools (seven primary, one secondary and one special needs school) to adopt a cross curricular project to promote themes of healthy eating, sustainability and enterprise.
The second phase of the project was launched in the autumn and schools were encouraged to investigate the food distribution chain of fruit and vegetables. During the course of the project the primary schools visited a farm to see how food is grown, toured NCGM where they made smoothies and explored a series of sensory tables and finally, developed sustainable gardens in their schools.
The celebration was opened by market chairman Baroness Brenda Dean who recognised that the schools achieved so much more than last year and congratulated them on the excellent produce grown.
Gary Marshall, chairman of Covent Garden Tenants’ Association, spoke about the joy of seeing the children engaged with the market and suggested that the market needs more young workers to ensure its future.
He said: “The enthusiasm the kids have shown has been brilliant. Their visits, looking at the fruit, working out how much it costs and where it comes from has been amazing and the traders have really enjoyed the banter. Let’s hope we’ve got some future traders in the room.”
John Torode, who sources product from the market and appears on the BBC’s Masterchef programme, awarded the prizes. He commended the children for the respect they showed for good quality fruit and vegetables. Chesterton Primary School was the overall project winner with Sacred Heart RC Primary School and St Georges CE School runners up. The remaining schools, John Burns Primary School; St Mary’s CE Primary School; Westbridge Primary School; Linden Lodge School; Shaftesbury Park Primary School and Battersea Park School, received prizes towards sustaining their healthy enterprises.
This years’ success has ensured that funding of the project, which is in its second year, will continue and look to involve more schools and businesses.
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