PhunkyFood's corporate partnership approach

"Their foresight and trail blazing provides a leading example of contemporary Public Health strategy in action. Purely Nutrition has and continues to model new ways of working in partnership with commercial sponsors which may act as an exemplar for 'Big Society' engagement."

Royal Society of Public Health, 2011

PhunkyFoods is, and always will be, an independent healthy lifestyles programme developed and written by registered nutritionists and consultant teachers. The editorial content of our programme, website and resources are completely independent of our consortium. This is ensured by utilising independent degree-qualified nutritionists and consultant teachers to write content, and through bi-annual meetings with the PhunkyFood's Steering Group comprising key child health figures and leading academics in the field. However, the 2004 Government White Paper "Choosing Health" stated that the current obesity epidemic is the joint responsibility of government, food industry, schools and parents. At PhunkyFoods we understand the serious issues schools face regarding lack of funding, and we know that if we can approach the food industry to help with the research and development of the PhunkyFoods programme as part of their response to the obesity epidemic, then we can significantly lower the cost of our programme to schools.

We believe in offering schools a sustainable solution to delivering credible and reliable healthy eating and physical activity messages to children in the classroom. In order to achieve this in a cost-effective manner for schools we approach companies to subsidise the cost of the programme via their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) budgets.

If we achieve our goal of a food industry consortium this gives PhunkyFoods a powerful voice to help us lobby government on behalf of schools to kick-start additional funding streams for schools which they can utilise to invest in vital healthy lifestyles programmes.

PhunkyFood's guidelines on partnership working

Some may consider there is a conflict of interest with the food industry sponsoring a healthy eating programme in schools but this is not the case. This is not an opportunity for the sponsors to promote foods to children. It is in the best interests of the food industry that their consumers can make informed food choices, eat balanced diets and have long and healthy lives. For this reason we have produced this document to help provide an open and transparent relationship between our partners in the food industry and the schools with which we work.

We seek funding from partners who share our vision of increased access to education around healthy lifestyles, and an increased number of children wanting to learn about the food they eat.
We seek consortium partners who are vocal and steadfast in their commitment to the Responsibility Deal.
Our food industry partners have no input into the editorial content of our curriculum, resources or website, and we will not change the content of our programme to suit the needs of corporate partnerships.
Company logos are not used on material accessed by school children and no advertising to children is permitted.
We do not endorse or promote any products via the PhunkyFoods programme.

The PhunkyFood's consortium

Our partners:

2 Sisters

2 Sisters Food Group is a leading diversified food manufacturer with strong market positions in Poultry, Chilled, Bakery and Frozen categories. We focus on delivering the highest quality product to our customers at the lowest cost. Our ambition is to grow to £3 billion annual sales by 2015.

Following the acquisition of Northern Foods in April, we continue to support Phunky Foods, providing substantial seed-corn funding for research and development of the programme under our core commitment to 'healthy balanced lifestyles'.

Our backing of a comprehensive two year pilot of Phunky Foods in over 100 schools in Yorkshire has helped address fundamental concerns about the quality of young children's food and health knowledge, and has the potential to bring critical healthy eating messages into every primary school classroom in Britain.

Helping to educate on the importance of 'Healthy Balanced Lifestyles' reflects our responsibilities to the consumer and addresses the challenge to the food industry set down in the 2004 White Paper, 'Choosing Health'.

We are confident that such grass roots engagement in the issue of healthier lifestyles, particularly for young people, will also show the way forward for the long term development of Britain's food industry, with what we learn shaping the future and ultimately determining our success as food manufacturing businesses.

Nestlé

Nestlé is the world's largest food and beverage manufacturer with a vision of becoming the world's leader in nutrition, health and wellness. With 140 years of food and nutrition research, we are committed to helping our consumers make healthy lifestyle choices.

It is important that we help people make healthier choices - by constantly improving the nutritional content of our products, and by supporting improved education about healthy eating.

Over recent years we have reduced the levels of salt, fat, sugar and saturates in our products. We have introduced natural colours where we can and removed or reduced trans fats to very low levels. New labelling on our products helps consumers to understand what is inside their foods at a glance, and enables them to make balanced food choices.

Supporting the PhunkyFoods programme to help it extend across the UK will enable many more children to understand the benefits of a healthy, balanced lifestyle.

McCain Foods

McCain Foods is the world's largest manufacturer of frozen potato products that are sold in more than 160 countries around the globe. We are committed to making high quality, nutritionally balanced products for our consumers to enjoy as well as helping them make informed choices by providing clear nutritional labelling on our packs. Over the last ten years in the UK we have adapted our products to make them more healthy, reducing salt by 20% and saturated fats by more than 70%; they contain no artificial colours or flavours and no hydrogenated fats. We believe educating people about the value of a balanced diet and physical activity is key to helping them lead healthier lives, and our support for Phunky Foods will enable more children across the country to benefit from its healthy lifestyles programme.