Could your local school use up to £2,000 to inspire children to grow and cook their own food? I’m sure it could, which is why you should persuade those in charge to enter the second Grow and Cook awards. This competition, sponsored by Heygate Farms Swaffham Ltd, aims to encourage children of all ages to explore the connection between farming and food – and how to prepare delicious, healthy meals.
Read about last year’s winners here.
William Gribbon, Heygate’s award winning Farm Manager in Norfolk, is the brains behind the Grow and Cook awards. He is passionate about farming and helping young people discover where their food comes from and how to enjoy it. This, along with his support for Norfolk’s farming community, is why the organisers of the Norfolk Food & Drink Festival asked him to be one of their three #NFDF2014 champions.
Making the link between farm and food
You might have see Will at the Royal Norfolk Agricultural Association’s ‘Grow your own Potatoes day’ on 17 March 2014. This event was about encouraging children to explore the world of the potato, from planting to plate, in all its many forms. Visitors to the Royal Norfolk Show (25/26 June) can watch the children harvesting their potatoes and find out which team grew the heaviest crop.
In our modern, urban culture it is all too easy for children to grow up with limited knowledge of the source of most of their food or how to prepare that food. This leaves them dependent on fast food and ready meals. While not all such food is bad – and its convenience has real value for the time-poor – there seems little doubt obesity is partly linked to a lack of awareness of what constitutes healthy, affordable food.
The Grow and Cook awards aim to re-establish the vital link between growers and young consumers. The judges – Will and Michelin-starred Chef Galton Blackiston – will be looking for projects that encourage children to engage enthusiastically with growing and preparing their own food. These could involve learning important cookery skills for a healthier life or understanding the environmental challenges of watering, feeding and protecting crops from pests and disease.
Enter today
For your school’s chance to win one of the two £1,000 prizes, make sure they enter their project in the awards and then encourage friends and family to vote for them. You can find full details on how to enter and vote here. We wish all the children who take part the best of luck and hope they have lots of fun in the process.
About this post
This is one in a series of #NFDF2014 tagged posts about the Norfolk Food and Drink Festival 2014 and related stories – I hope you enjoy them. If you have any questions or comments, or ideas for future posts, please post them under this blog or tweet them to me. I will do my best to reply.
Thank you for reading – best wishes – Huw.
Huw Sayer 
Excellent initiative- we’ll definitely promote this.
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Reblogged this on Mumsnet Suffolk & Norfolk and commented:
We’re hugely supportive of any initiative that encourages young children (and by dint of association, their parents) to grow and eat their own vegetables and fruit. As a child I learned to handle tiny carrot seeds and the huge runner bean ones, raking the soil powder fine and drawing fine rills for sowing into it.My Grandfather’s Sciatica meant that weed spotting and pulling was down to me- this taught me to be dutiful, to follow a task through, gently leading me towards the realisation that generally you need to put the effort in to get the rewards. Slugs taught me that life is not always fair and hard work sometimes is not rewarded.
Patience, discipline, a connection to the land and to nature; knowledge of science in action and an interest in food and nourishment- all of these things and more come to the child who gardens.
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Thank you for you kind comments and your childhood memories – quite agree that gardening can teach you many life skills (not sure I’ve quite learnt the slug and snail lesson even after all these years – my mange tout are struggling to flower – where’s a hedgehog when you need one?).
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Really appreciate you guys raising awareness of our awards. Its important that children learn where their food comes from and just how easy it is to grow and cook delicious and nutritious food. Schools can enter online at http://www.heygatefarms.co.uk/GrowAndCook-entry.shtml
Thank you,
The Heygate Farms Team
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Reblogged this on Music in Norwich and commented:
Please pass this on to schools that might benefit
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