Bostock New Zealand has taken the initiative to ensure school students and its own staff lead healthier lifestyles.
The vertically integrated company is delivering fresh, organic apples to Flaxmere College in Hawke’s Bay to use as part of its Kickstart Breakfast Programme, which ensures students eat a nutritious breakfast before classes commence.
Bostock owner, John Bostock, said the programme aligned perfectly with the company’s strong vision of changing eating habits across New Zealand.
“We are a country that has major issues with poor diet, obesity and sugar, but we can change this by giving people opportunities to learn new, exciting and interesting ways to eat healthily,” Bostock explained. “Education about healthy diet begins at a young age. We need to teach students so it sets them up for life.”
Flaxmere College principal Louise Anaru said the support of Bostock and other local producers was ensuring the breafast programme’s success.
“We are always encouraging our students to eat nutritious food,” Anaru explained. “They need to have good diets, which provide the strength and energy for maximum learning at school. It’s great to have local growers getting in behind us and donating apples.”
Bostock has also invested in a new purpose-built organic kitchen, where its staff can enjoy subsidised organic meals. A professional chef has been hired to dish-up wholesome cooked meals for the some 600 employees who work across Bostock’s orchards during the height of the season.
“We are strongly committed to the well-being of all our staff. By taking away the cost barrier, we hope we will start changing eating habits,” Bostock said.
“We grow our own organic, premium produce and we are now using this in our organic kitchen. We need to ‘walk the walk’ and create a healthy ethos inside our company so everyone who works at Bostock New Zealand in Hastings can take this home to their families and show that we are what we eat.”
