Famous dinner lady shares skills and ideas at Food Technology Centre

Six school cooks from across the North West gathered at the Cumbria Rural Enterprise Agency (CREA) Food Technology Centre (FTC) earlier this week to take part in one of Jeanette Orrey’s training courses for school catering staff.Jeanette, who worked with Jamie Oliver on his Jamie’s School Dinners series and is the author of The Dinner Lady and Second Helpings, designed the two-day course to provide informative and practical training to engage catering staff who are part of the Food for Life Partnership programme, which is funded by the Big Lottery.

“I have been working in school kitchens for many years, starting as a kitchen assistant when my own children were small and working my way up to Cook Supervisor,” she said.

“I understand how hard it is to feed children well on a limited budget and with just a small kitchen but I have also met school cooks who have found solutions and are keen to share their experience and ideas – that is what the course at Penrith was all about.”

Jamie Sadler, the Food for Life chef who worked with Jeanette on the workshop said, “School cooks have been de-skilled over the years by the use of processed ingredients in school cooking. We’re trying to give school cooks the skills necessary to work with fresh, local, unprocessed ingredients. “

David Prentice is the new Manager of the Food Technology Centre and he was delighted to welcome Jeanette and her team from Ashlyns Training Kitchen: “We have six kitchens in the Centre and three of them are available for short term rental. We have been promoting the units and facilities to small food and drink businesses in the area but they also make ideal training kitchens. Jeanette was impressed by the modern equipment and the availability of neighbouring training rooms and I think the Centre proved ideal for her workshops.”

One focus of the training was the use of fresh local and seasonal produce in school dinner menus and David and his team had sourced a large proportion of the workshop’s ingredients from Carleton Farm Shop, just off the A66 at Penrith.

“The food we have used over the last two days has been fantastic and locally-sourced,” said Jeanette. “The catering staff have had a great time and the views from the FTC are worth coming back to Cumbria for again and again.” In fact, Jeanette is hoping to run courses next year for parents, nursery and care home staff and anyone interested in finding out more should contact David at the FTC.

As a final word, Sarah Fowler from Brookburn Primary School, Chorlton near Manchester was one of the catering staff who took part in the workshop: “We’ve had a wonderful two days cooking with excellent quality local food in great facilities.”

Other businesses wanting to use the Food Technology Centre kitchens for production, product development and food-related training should contact David Prentice on 01768 891555 or via davidp@crea.co.uk

For further information, please contact

David Prentice
CREA Food Technology Centre
01768 891555

Sally Seed
Stoneleigh Communications
01539 624732