24.05.10 | Children go Natures Way with new education resouce

Local salad and fruit manufacturer, Natures Way Foods (NWF), is helping primary school children learn about salad growing and harvesting with a new Field to Fork micro-site and on-line educational resource that is interactive and fun. 

www.field2fork.co.uk is a free to use website for primary school children learning about food, farming and the environment.  Through colourful visuals and fun vegetable characters, children are shown how lettuce is grown, harvested, washed and packaged ready to eat.

The site has been inspired by the hugely popular Field to Fork tours run by NWF over the past few years, in partnership with their sister company Langmead Farms.  Demand is so great that there is now a waiting list, so NWF has created the site to reach more children and ensure they can learn about fresh salads when in the classroom.

Through the site, the children go on a virtual Field to Fork Tour, beginning in the fields where the lettuce seeds are planted and grown.  They learn why the farms location is important, how irrigation works and what happens after harvest.  The children are shown how the lettuce is washed, chopped and bagged, and they can down-load a Bug ID Fact Sheet with facts and figures about bugs and mini beasts and how to identify them in the fields.   There is also an on-line quiz to test their knowledge and they can win a packet of Field to Fork watercress seeds to grow at home.

“Our Field to Fork initiative is one of the corner stones of our Community Programme and we are very proud of its huge popularity and value amongst local schools” explains Sarah Baldock, Head of Marketing at NWF.

 “However, as we can only accommodate a limited number of schools per season, we wanted to find a way to ensure that children can continue to learn about our salads and fresh produce - even if they don’t have the opportunity to visit us in person.  The micro-site mirrors our Field to Fork Tour and has been created with the help of educational experts to ensure that it mirrors the topics covered in the National Curriculum.  It can be accessed by children of all ages and we hope the schools will enjoy using it.”