ESS, part of Compass Group UK & Ireland, has partnered with previous School Food Award-winners, Mackie Academy, to deliver the Voyagers initiative, which sees members of the company’s management and culinary teams support schoolchildren to design and market a new streetfood offer.
Under the programme, S3 students are tasked with designing a contemporary street food concept, recognising the popularity of this dining style and the diversity of cuisines and formats it incorporates.
As well as creating the product, taking into consideration factors including consumer appeal, ingredients cost, pricing, presentation and packaging, participants are required to develop marketing collateral to maximise its appeal. They then exhibit their concepts and explain their decision making to their peers and a team of ESS senior managers and culinary leads for judging.
Designed collaboratively as a skills-focused programme that helps students develop key elements of their school leaver profile, the programme – now in its second year – incorporates creativity, innovation, teamwork and problem solving.
The recent winning group, including Matt, Jacob Scarlett and Amy (pictured above) created ‘Bite and Beyond’. ‘We learned how important it is to plan thoroughly and listen to each other’s ideas,’ said Matt. ‘We chose our idea after doing a lot of research and realising that one meal wouldn’t suit everyone, so having a customisable menu with different options gave people the freedom to choose what they wanted. Being chosen as a winning group felt really rewarding and made our efforts feel worthwhile.’
Megan Douglas, Business and Community Support Officer at Mackie Academy, added: ‘We are delighted to mark the second successful year of our partnership with ESS as part of our Voyagers course. We’re incredibly grateful to their team for their continued support, inspiration and real-world insight, and we couldn’t be prouder of our pupils for their enthusiasm, creativity and hard work in bringing their ideas to life.’
Ronnie Kelman, Managing Director of ESS Energy, Government & Infrastructure, said: ‘As well as asking the students at Mackie Academy to create a contemporary street food concept, we tasked them with producing marketing collateral and presenting their ideas to our senior team, and we hope these skills will help them in their future academic and work careers. It’s a brilliant opportunity to support the next generation and I’m proud that our team are embracing it.’