School kids race to embrace their greens in creative competition

Potato products processor McCain has challenged 20 students at Scalby School in Scarborough to create a frozen vegetable product, which acts either as a main or side dish and is low in salt.

The scheme began in February and counts towards the students' Food Technology GCSE. The best creation will be available in school canteens nationwide at the start of the academic year in September.

During the earlier stages of the project the children had a weekly double lesson where they cooked products. This was followed by an hour-long tasting session with McCain employees later in the week.

"We introduced them to a lot of different vegetables, such as butternut squash, beans and pulses so as to widen the scope of ingredients they work with," says McCain new product development (NPD) head Pam Hume. "The biggest challenge was that most of the kids thought they hated vegetables, but at the end of the scheme they were all really enthusiastic," she says.

There were some great ideas and the children really embraced different cultures using Chinese and Thai flavours, she adds. "We learnt a lot about children's taste preferences. Quite often they used hot spices and they had far broader tastes than we'd given them credit for."

Cost was not controlled to avoid restricting what the students did, she says.

McCain is now working on the most promising products and looking to use industrially available ingredients. "There was about £2,000 worth of sun-dried tomatoes in one product, so it just wasn't commercially viable!" says Hume. "We'll be looking to modify the ingredients, whilst maintaining the taste profile. It's very possible that the winning product may be launched in the retail sector."

The school was awarded a cash prize and the winning NPD team will be taken through the steps to see how their concept was turned into a commercial product, she adds. "Food is currently seen as a secondary part of the curriculum, which is a shame. We have educated these kids and hopefully they will become the food technologists of the future."