Prue to serve up food advice

5:30pm Monday 14th July 2008

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PRUE LEITH, the queen of school dinners, is coming to York to serve up grub for school heads.

North Yorkshire County Caterers, the school meal providers for schools in York and North Yorkshire, are hosting a Great British school dinner evening at Canon Lee School, in York, on Wednesday evening. The event will bring schools and caterers together to share the experience of new healthy school dinner menus.

The topic of the evening will be the Government’s new nutritional guidelines, and the guest of honour is Prue Leith, the Government’s spokesperson on healthy eating.

She chairs the Schools Food Trust, which is charged with overseeing the implementation of the legislation on improving school food that followed the campaign by TV chef Jamie Oliver.

Geoff Marshall of North Yorkshire County Caterers, said: “The Great British School dinner evening offers an opportunity to both head teachers and caterers to question the new nutritional guidelines and discuss the implications of changes within the school meals system.”

The event is due to be attended by primary and secondary school head teachers from across York and North Yorkshire.

Guests will queue for a school dinner, served by staff present and Prue Leith herself, before eating their meals and taking part in a quiz on school meals.

Miss Leith will then talk about school dinners and the future before opening the floor to questions from the audience.

In January this year The Press reported that fewer than a third of York’s schoolchildren were eating school dinners – with fears over healthy eating to blame. The school meal take-up rate in York dropped to 32.5 per cent. We reported last week that the cost of a school meal in York and North Yorkshire was to increase from September.