In Estonian schools, around 50 carloads of uneaten food are thrown away every year. With the “Let’s Cook Together!” campaign, organizers aimed to improve the situation and raise students’ awareness about wasting less food. The campaign began on October 17, 2018, at Saue Gymnasium and continued until the end of the academic year.
During the campaign, joint cooking sessions were held in 14 Estonian schools. During the joint cooking sessions, students prepared new dishes from the food left over from the previous meal in school canteens, with the help of chefs, learning how to recycle food. Before the joint cooking sessions, discussions were held about food waste as a problem, its causes, quantities, and ways to avoid it. At the end of the school year, the remaining quantities of food in school canteens were weighed to obtain updated statistics on the amounts of food wasted in schools.
The project also produced guidance material called “Preventing and Reducing Food Waste and Loss in Schools.”
“Let’s Cook Together!” was funded by the Environmental Investment Centre and the Ministry of the Environment.
It is very easy to replicate this initiative in other schools, and it has a high impact as the results of the campaign were significant in reducing food waste and raising awareness among students about environmentally friendly practices in the food industry.
