This week sees our collaboration with Big Bocs Bwyd take to the Royal Welsh Show in Builth Wells.

Big Bocs Bwyd is an educational initiative and reflects the new Curriculum for Wales. The approach also delivers across several agendas, from healthy eating, availability of food and encouraging schools to work closely with local organisations and residents on a focused, mutually beneficial intervention.

The scheme was initiated at Cadoxton Primary School, in the seaside town of Barry, where children and parents first opened the food shop in June 2020 in a shipping container outside of the school community centre. Cadoxton Primary School has been able to assist over 60 other schools across Wales in setting up their own Big Bocs Bwyd shops to help struggling families.

This year’s Royal Welsh Show sees the launch of the new Welsh Food Village, where children from six primary schools will be promoting their actions and addressing food inequality and poor diet as part of the Big Bocs Bwyd initiative. In bringing the charity to the forefront at the Royal Welsh Show, our CSR Manager Ed Morgan Said: ”Against a backdrop of dialogue for sustainable agriculture, environmental concerns, supply chain challenges, food inequalities, ‘influencers’ and the urgent need to promote the food sector as a career choice, there has arguably never been a more important time for Welsh agriculture to reclaim some of the lost narrative on food production and dietary choices.”

Ed went onto say ”Child food inequality and poor diets are chronic problems in Wales. Many in the agricultural sector are somewhat removed from challenges faced by some of our urban communities, likewise many from our towns and cities are very much removed from agriculture and growing food. This is one reason why we’re supporting Y Big Bocs Bwyd charity.”

Over the four days, pupils from six primary schools will cook healthy meals on stage with our Development Chef Stewart Williams, using only Welsh ingredients.

The Welsh Government policy framework ‘Healthy Weight, Healthy Wales’ highlights that:

• 25%, a quarter of all children (around 8,500) start school overweight or obese.
• 60% of adults are overweight or obese. And that’s going up by 10,000 each year.

The direction of travel is that more children start off, or become overweight, as they grow up in Wales. It is literally an ever-expanding problem.

Keep up to date with Big Bocs news at the Royal Welsh via @castellhowell @BigBocsBwyd @RWAS