At ASSET Education our vision is to equip and empower the next generate of children to create a compassionate, equitable and sustainable world where they can personally and collectively thrive. Our 15 schools embody that vision, but in 2024 a conversation with the ASSET Arrows, our pupil parliament, made us realise that we haven't always extended that vision to our lunchtimes. We created ASSET Nourish to apply our ambition for an excellent education to our school food - making it, eating it and learning about it.
You can read about the foundations of our food mission with the Jamie Oliver Award winning Arrows here. We are only at the start of our journey, learning how to balance what children and parents want with great nutrition on an ever challenging budget, to enable children to thrive. Our ambition is to show what excellence in food education looks like across 15 very different Suffolk primary schools. Let's do lunch!
Jacqueline Bircham, CEO ASSET Education
I joined ASSET to help create the Nourish service after years working in award-winning restaurants across Suffolk, and around the world. Moving from fine dining to school kitchens is an exciting step - supporting staff to empower our children to experience the joy of good food and understand how it builds healthy bodies to take them into their futures thriving is a wonderful opportunity.Â
School food is so much more than carbs and protein. It's also the social and cultural role food and mealtimes play in our children's development. It's the impact of food decisions on the environment, and our understanding of the place we're from. And it's about our whole wellbeing - not just our physical health, but our emotional and mental wellbeing.
I'm very excited about the future of ASSET Nourish. In a world full of ultra-processed food, single use plastic and powerful marketing, we want to show what's possible when you provide kids with good quality, nutritious food, a good food culture and a great food education.