Ready steady cook kids

A budget of next to nothing to raise awareness of food and cooking among children, coupled with a high-speed development programme, has resulted in a bright and simple scheme from Interbrand Newell and Sorrell.

The consultancy’s literature for the Royal Society of Arts’ Focus on Food Campaign will be distributed to 500 schools around the country later this month, in a bid to increase children’s confidence in preparing healthy food. It will coincide with school visits from a cookery bus, with livery also by INS, helping children put what they have been taught in the classroom into practice.

This is the scheme’s trial year, of what is to become an annual event, with numbers expected to grow next year. Schools are involved at their own request.

A 1993 MORI poll showed that 93 per cent of seven-year-olds could play computer games, but only half could boil an egg and less than 40 per cent could bake a potato. Many schools have closed their cookery departments because of cost or safety issues, says consultancy creative director Frances Newell.

The consultancy accepted the project on a charitable basis after the success of an RSA lecture on the subject in May 1997. The initiative led to the current project, sponsored by supermarket group Waitrose.

Designer: Interbrand Newell and Sorrell

Client: Royal Society of Arts

Sponsor: Waitrose