Flintshire students’ healthy breakfast product ‘highly commended’ In tasty schools challenge

A team of enterprising year 9 students have been highly commended in the final of the Tasty Careers Schools Challenge for their innovative and healthy breakfast product.

The all girl team of Ysgol Treffynnon students, Ellen Davies, Seren Vaughan, Keira Payne, Scarlett Pugh and Charlotte Fernley called themselves ‘BB Bakers’ and, after winning their school round, went through to the final of the North Wales competition held at Conwy Business Centre.

Tasty Careers Wales is an initiative funded by Welsh Government to support the Food Action Plan. It launched an Enterprise and Employability Challenge Competition for schools delivering the National/Foundation Skills Challenge Certificate Welsh Baccalaureate at Key Stage 4.

The competition, which is based on a Challenge Brief designed by The National Skills Academy for Food & Drink and approved by WJEC, aims to provide learners with an exciting way of completing the Enterprise and Employability Challenge while developing skills and awareness of the food and drink industry, and the exciting careers on offer within the sector.

As part of the challenge students were required to collaborate in teams to design, create and promote a food product which has health benefits and uses locally sourced ingredients.

The Ysgol Treffynnon team designed and created a ‘sugar free’ banana bread breakfast bar, targeted at the teenage market with the unique selling point of encouraging young people to eat a brain boosting breakfast before school.

Jenny Morris, teacher of food and nutrition, supported the students throughout the challenge. She said:

“It has been very exciting watching the students collaborate and work together to create new food
and drink products. The students initially brainstormed the task and came up with a variety of ideas from fruity drinks to sweet and savoury recipes.

“‘BB Bakers’ had a really interesting idea using local and sustainable ingredients. The students experimented with a recipe to ensure the product had the perfect flavour and texture with a range of health benefits.

“We are so proud of the girls, they did a fantastic job of representing Ysgol Treffynnon and presenting their product to a team of judges, Careers Wales, and business people from the food and drink industry. They were highly commended for taking part and getting through to the final.”

Through the challenge, the students also developed skills in creativity and innovation, personal effectiveness, and digital literacy, and learned more about career opportunities in the manufacturing, hospitality, and food service sectors, as well as developing an understanding of the supply chain, costings, product design, manufacturing, and technical requirements.

‘BB Bakers’, Ellen, Charlotte, Keira, Scarlett and Seren, said: “We have enjoyed working as a team and developing our baking skills. The project has given us a focus to develop our ideas and to put them into practise whilst experimenting with recipes and flavours. We have learnt about food waste and researched sustainability as part of the project, and this will also help us in the future when planning recipes. It has been a great experience for us.“