New School FEAST Training Kitchen and Food Technology Facilities open in Hastings today

22nd June 2010, 8:19am

William Parker Sports College's School FEAST Training Kitchen and new Food Technology Facilities will be officially opened by actress Nina Wadia, at 11.30am today (22nd June).

Wadia will be shown around the catering facilities along with William Parker Sports College students and sample some of their cooking in this new curriculum area.

Local school cooks who have already completed their School FEAST training at the College will return to be part of the official opening of the new South East School FEAST training centre.

The new facilities are provided as William Parker is one of the two Schools in East Sussex that do not currently offer food technology as a subject, as it has no facilities to do so. 

The students have benefited through their own food technology courses, and through the FEAST centre by the provision of nutritious, and healthy food provided by the NVQ trained catering staff.

In addition, the college now has two new student food technology rooms being opened as part of a suite of three rooms capable of domestic and commercial training.

Linda Smith, a School Food Trust director said: "School cooks are at the heart of our school food revolution, transforming lunches and children's health, so they deserve the best training. The new School FEAST kitchen will play a key role in nurturing the school cooks of the future – enhancing the skills of the kitchen staff for hundreds in Hastings and the surrounding area, and ensuring children eat a healthy lunch every day."

School FEAST stands for "food excellence and skills training" and is an initiative provided by the School Food Trust to train catering staff. The Hastings centre is one of 29 School FEAST centres and partnerships comprising a national network of specialist training centres dedicated to the school food workforce.

Related Articles:

• 02 Sep 2010 - 200 schools and counting – all set for celebrity School Cooks competition
• 10 Aug 2010 - School FEAST trained cooks to compete on live television cook-off
• 10 Aug 2010 - School FEAST trained cooks to compete on live television cook-off
• 09 Nov 2009 - New skills centre opens for school cooks in Hastings
• 13 May 2009 - North east feasts on school food training
• 20 Apr 2009 - South East School FEAST hosts Easter conference

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Chef

22 June 2010 at 7:36pm

I cannot understand why new kitchens have to be built to train school cooks. There are many community colleges that run cookery evening classes using classroom kitchens, would it not have been more cost effective to have the classes in these kitchens and used the money on other areas of school meals? Chef

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