EAT THEM TO DEFEAT THEM 2022 CATERERS’ CHALLENGE WINNERS ANNOUNCED

Veg Power announced today, the winner of the 2022 Caterers’ Challenge sponsored by Tilda as part of its award-winning ‘Eat Them To Defeat Them’ campaign run in partnership with ITV. Entries submitted by school catering teams were evaluated for their creativity, enthusiasm and commitment to encourage children to try more veg during the campaign. This year, Tilda became the official sponsor of the Caterers’ Challenge and an additional category the Tilda Challenge was added, in which school chefs were asked to create a dish that had the perfect harmony of vegetables and rice.

The overall winner of both the Caterers’ Challenge and the Tilda award was the Endeavour Primary School and HC3S catering team in Andover, Hampshire. This winning team will receive a trophy, certificate and cheque for £500. The trophy will be presented at the LACA Awards for Excellence gala dinner on 7th July 2022.

While there were many creative entries, the judges selected Endeavour Primary as the winner due to its Monster Market vegetable tasting stall. The stall was not only eye-catching and highly visual, it also became a gathering point which led to discussions about vegetables between teaching staff and pupils. The judges were also really impressed with how the team encouraged all different age groups of children to participate from posters to art displays and a recipe development competition.

The Tilda Challenge winning rice and vegetable recipe, Mexican Rice Bowl with Beetroot Salsa & Baked Tortilla Chips, will join Veg Power’s online recipe collection appearing alongside recipes by Jamie Oliver, Sir Paul McCartney and dozens of other famous chefs. Twenty runners up will each receive £100 and be acknowledged on the Caterers’ Challenge Hall of Fame.

Commenting on her school catering team’s success and involvement in Eat Them To Defeat Them, Helen Palmer, Headteacher, Endeavour Primary School said, “We are thrilled that our catering team has been recognised for this prestigious award. They go over and above to engage and enthuse pupils in eating vegetables and the way they involve the children creatively makes all the difference to making it a highlight of the school term and even year.”

The Caterers’ Challenge was held as part of the Eat Them To Defeat Them schools’ programme in which 1 million children from 3,845 schools across the nation participated – the largest to date. The school catering teams used their talent and expertise to create spreads of vegetable tasters for their pupils to try. All children also received a reward chart and sticker pack to take home to encourage them to repeat the behaviour at home.

“Every year we are absolutely blown away by the amazing entries to The Caterers’ Challenge. The school catering teams play such a pivotal role in bringing this campaign to life for children. We love to see their creativity through the production of spreads of vegetables which encourages even the most reluctant child to give them a try,” commented Dan Parker, Chief Executive, Veg Power.

Annette Coggins, Head of Foodservice, Tilda UK added:

“The Mexican Rice Bowl with Beetroot Salsa created by the team at Endeavour is delicious and nutritious, using ingredients that their pupils absolutely love – like our Brown & White rice! The recipe embodies what Tilda is all about. We’re passionate about bringing flavourful meals full of vegetables to children, that we know they’ll enjoy and that are good for them too!”

Councillor Steve Forster, Hampshire County Council’s Executive Member for Commercial Strategy, Estates and Property, said: “I’m delighted that the culinary creativity of Endeavour Primary School and HC3S, Hampshire County Council’s school catering service, have been recognised with a national award. Our HC3S teams go the extra mile on a daily basis to serve up nutritious, freshly cooked lunches for nearly 500 schools, helping pupils to flourish and learn in the classroom.”

Eat Them to Defeat Them is a campaign from Veg Power CIC, ITV, Channel 4 and Sky Media to inspire kids to eat more veg. It brings together a huge alliance including TV advertising, celebrities, supermarkets, chefs, schools, communities and families. Since the campaign began, it has resulted in increased sales of vegetables nationwide with an additional £92million worth of veg sold – equating to nearly 1 billion children’s veg portions.