Food-engagement workshop planned for local industry

WeValueFood is an international project based at the Institute for Global Food Security at Queen's University Belfast.

It aims to enhance consumer health and support the agri-food economy by improving future generations' knowledge of, and engagement with, food.

Next Thursday 30 May will see a workshop at Queen's, showcasing various aspects of the project, and some of the international partners on the project, which includes researchers, food innovators and entrepreneurs from Israel, Finland, Switzerland, Spain and Italy.

The project is funded by EIT Food, a knowledge and innovation community that connects consumers with businesses, start-ups, researchers and students from Europe and beyond. EIT Food supports innovative and economically sustainable initiatives to improve health, access to quality food and the environment.

The event will include a focus on Basque attitudes to food. The Basque Culinary Centre will be in Belfast to tell us all about the community tradition of 'Txokos' - bringing people together to cook, eat and socialise. The WeValueFood project is even hoping to pilot Txokos in Northern Ireland as a way of creating increased engagement with food, particularly among young people!

Also featured at the workshop will be an explainer on Project Daire, which aims to improve schoolchildren's knowledge of food and where it comes from, in the greater Derry-Londonderry area. It will involve a range of local stakeholders in order to create interventions for children eg. around school dinners and breakfast clubs, but also visits to farms and food-production facilities. Scientists at Queen's will then monitor the results to create a robust, local evidence-base - did the interventions work? Did the children's knowledge of the entire food supply-chain, from farm to fork, improve?

More generally, the workshop will topics such as: How do we get younger people to make better dietary choices? How can we re-engage society with cooking and food? What's the best way to communicate food values to consumers?

If you are a farmer, a member of the food-production, food-retail or agrifood industry in Northern Ireland, then you are welcome to attend this workshop. It starts at 12pm with food demonstrations from Flatev (a DIY bakery which produces fresh breads quickly and easily) and includes a light lunch featuring local produce, before wrapping up at 4pm.

There is no charge for attendance but as numbers are limited it is essential to register in advance by contacting u.bradley@qub.ac.uk