Our Story
The PhunkyFoods Programme supports the health and food education of young children, aged from 4-11, using a whole school approach to health. Working in partnership with Local Authorities, our schools programme forms part of a wider, whole systems approach to a healthier lifestyle.
The PhunkyFoods Programme was founded in 2004 by nutritionist Dr Jennie Cockroft and Sorrell Fearnall. The partnership was based on a steadfast belief in the fundamental ideals of health promoting schools, and the determination to help inspire children and their families to overcome the barriers and challenges to adopting a healthier lifestyle.
Twenty years later and Jennie continues the campaign to inspire healthy schools, having delivered the programme to thousands of primary schools across the UK, inspiring hundreds of thousands of children and families to make healthier choices along the way. We currently deliver the programme in partnership with 450 UK primary schools across eight UK Local Authorities.
Here at PhunkyFoods, we firmly believe that early years settings and schools are ideal place-based locations for tackling health inequalities. However, the reality of the daily demands on schools and school staff, including a packed curriculum, challenging pupil behaviour, and staff assessment expectations, must be considered to ensure that staff feel comfortable and confident in engaging with the whole school approach to health.
Our children deserve the best chance for a healthy childhood, one that inspires them to become happy and healthy adults of the future. Inequalities in social, economic and physical factors mean that some will struggle to attain that vision, but our mission at PhunkyFoods is to help inspire children, and their families to overcomes these challenges and thrive. That starts with good education and modelling, incorporates motivational activities and rewards, and ends in behaviour change and habit formation which will last a lifetime.