Caring Cooks of Jersey has cooked up the idea with UBS Wealth Management and is running a pilot scheme at Samarès school and the charity hopes one day to get healthy lunch boxes into every school to help busy mums and dads.
Caring Cooks Founder Melissa Nobrega said: “Over 70% of parents recently surveyed, said they found packed lunches to be a bit of a pain, and we believe this has to do with the lack of time that many have to make them up.
“Jersey has the world’s highest proportion of working mothers, with 70% of Jersey’s mothers and an even higher proportion of fathers, in work. Unfortunately, the reality is that this leaves little time to spend for shopping and preparing packed lunches before school and work every day.
“We are really excited to be embarking on this pilot, called the Proper Packed Lunch Project. We’re going to provide a variety of packed lunches to ten Year 4 school children, who will be our mini researchers and in return, they’ll keep a daily diary of what they eat and how they feel during the afternoon, after eating. We hope that by doing this, we’ll find out what the children will or won’t eat and which foods help to boost performance at school.”
The ten little ‘guinea pigs’ have already chosen their lunch boxes and will start their two-week food diary on Monday but the charity wants to see some form of packed lunch provision available in schools.
Mrs Nobrega said: “Because of time constraints on parents, there is a general reliance on packaged and convenience foods to fill lunch boxes. Our aim is to learn enough from this pilot study to be able to move towards a point where enjoyable and nutritious packed lunches are available in the island’s schools. We’re really pleased and grateful that UBS has agreed to fund this project, which could have an incredibly positive impact on the welfare of the island’s community.”
UBS Jersey’s Managing Director Tom Hill said: “The Proper Packed Lunch Project is a really interesting idea that could have hugely beneficial consequences for Jersey.
“Melissa and her team have worked really hard with Mr Willis and his colleagues and pupils at Samarès School, to bring this pilot project to fruition. We’re delighted that UBS can play an important role in helping to develop a greater understanding of the types of food that school children are eating, and are happy to eat, in their packed lunches.”