Education show

Citation

(2008), "Education show", Nutrition & Food Science, Vol. 38 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/nfs.2008.01738dab.016

Education show

Article Type: Food facts From: Nutrition & Food Science, Volume 38, Issue 4.

The Milk Development Council's (MDC's) school milk project (SMP) and Home-Grown Cereal's Authority (HGCA) enjoyed great success at this year's education show promoting the benefits of milk and cereals as part of a balanced diet to school children of all ages. Over 1,500 attendees visited the stand, and an impressive 300 registered interest in starting a school breakfast club, or receiving information to help improve an existing club.

It was the first time that the MDC and HGCA had exhibited at the show to jointly promote milk and cereals farmed by the farmers they support.

Roz Battye, Market Development Manager at the HGCA says: “The education show was an ideal opportunity for us to showcase our nutrition work, including farmhouse breakfast week, and with the SMP enjoying success at previous education shows we were really keen to get involved to jointly promote the benefits of breakfast”.

Di Cannon, SMP manager, says: “This partnership made perfect sense for us because it further strengthened our proposition to get quality nutritional messages into schools. With more schools opening earlier to meet the needs of working parents, running a breakfast club is a good way of ensuring children eat a nutritious breakfast at the start of the day, preparing them for school lessons and play”.

“We will now be working hard through our milk facilitators to follow-up all the leads generated at the show, and hope to see breakfast served in more schools in the coming months”.

The education show ran from 28 February to 1 March at the NEC in Birmingham.

School milk project

The SMP is funded and run by The MDC. the MDC was set up in 1994 (after the disbanding of the milk boards) to pick up essential services for dairy farmers that would not otherwise be provided. These services include the genetic evaluation of dairy breeding stock, research and development into better ways of producing milk, and the stimulation and development of the market for milk.

The MDC is funded entirely by milk producers, via a statutory levy on all milk sold off-farm, at the rate of 0.06p per litre. This provides an annual income of around £7m.

The MDC's current focus is on improving the profitability of dairy farming by focusing on three specific areas:

1. 1.

   Innovation and consumer education to stimulate demand and create more value in the dairy “category”;

2. 2.

   Better supply chain relationships that ensure farmers as well as processors and retailers can enjoy a sustainable share of the profits; and

3. 3.

   Competitive milk production to help farmers realise better margins in the short term and increase their ability to compete in European markets in the long term.

The MDC co-funds the industry's nutritional and issues management resource – The Dairy Council – with the processors' trade body Dairy UK.

Home-Grown Cereal's Authority

HGCA aims to improve the production and marketing of UK grain. It provides market information, assists cereal product development, promotes exports and funds research and development.

HGCA also organises the annual farmhouse breakfast campaign, which takes place in the last week of January with over 1,500 events taking place up and down the country.

Further information can be found at www.farmhousebreakfast.com