During the Spring Term and as part of Waste Week, Oxfordshire Green Schools will be supporting schools to reduce the amount of food waste they produce. Here are a few ideas that you could do in your school to tackle food waste during Waste Week. They are all taken from research by WRAP. If you’re interested in working with Oxfordshire Green Schools to reduce your food waste, contact .

Suggestions for how to increase pupils’ awareness of food waste issues included:
o Engaging children in where food comes from by growing vegetables, visiting greengrocers and kitchens – enable them to connect with food.
o Teaching cooking skills and sharing food cooked at school in cookery classes.
o Involving pupils in monitoring food waste in the school.
o Providing pupils with opportunities to give feedback on the menu.
o Surveys to find out what pupils like and don’t like.
o Taster days and ‘try something new’ campaigns to encourage pupils to try unfamiliar food.
o Giving out stickers to pupils who finish their food.
o Making an event of free fruit, sharing it together and making an occasion of eating it.

The canteen environment
The following suggestions were offered to improve the canteen environment and therefore encourage pupils to stay in the canteen and enjoy their meals:
o Creating an atmosphere more like a family shared meal, for example by having mixed age ranges on tables, encouraging older children to act as servers for their table and
encouraging adults to eat with pupils;
o Having ‘slow food days’ when there are no clubs or rehearsals to rush off to, with a focus
on eating slowing and enjoying the meal;
o Providing guidance/ legislation for minimum time that should be allowed per meal sitting
o Celebrating food through themed food days, involving parents and producing recipe books to take home;
o Letting pupils choose the background music for the canteen; and
o Developing a ‘café’ style to canteens, logos designed by pupils, smaller chairs, plants and cosy corners.

Menu planning and choice
The groups discussing this considered how involving children more in menu planning and managing choices more effectively could help reduce food waste in schools. The groups also included suggestions to prevent leftover fruit from being wasted. Possible solutions suggested were:
o Analysing what is left at the end of the day and adjusting menus accordingly.
o Use of information technology to develop menu planning programmes.
o Voting every term for a favourite food to be on the menu.
o Consulting pupils regarding menu changes.
o Taster sessions for children and parents.
o Creating menus from a smaller range of ingredients to reduce waste.
o Reducing choice (the more choice offered the more food has to be provided to make sure
there is enough for all to have what they want).
o Increasing choice by allowing more flexibility of what foods on the menu can be served in combination without compromising nutritional compliance (e.g. not restricting having
choices such as garlic bread to only one meal option).
o Offering the opportunity for pupils to choose meal options in advance, e.g. children choose at registration and are given colour co-ordinated wristbands to identify meal choice.
o Making smoothies and desserts from uneaten fruit.
o Creating a tuck shop run by pupils to ‘sell’ leftover fruit to widen its appeal to pupils.

For reasons why food is wasted in schools and for more ideas on how to reduce food waste in your school, download a full copy of WRAP’s report ‘Food waste in Schools.’