New sponsor for Campaign for School Gardening

16:03:20 17th March 2009

Waitrose has been announced as the new sponsor of the Royal Horticultural Society's (RHS) Campaign for School Gardening.

The deal is set to last three years and will see around four-fifths (80 per cent) of the UK's primary schools benefit from lessons that teach how to make the best use of the garden and greenhouse.

"Showing children where food comes from and helping them to enjoy vegetables and eat healthily is essential," explained Waitrose managing director Mark Price, who highlighted child obesity as one of the problems he hoped the scheme would address.

The programme has already helped around one million children and aims to reach 80 per cent of the nation's primary schools by 2010.

Waitrose has signed up for three years and is set to host a number of educational events based around healthy eating, cooking and gardening.

In 2006, celebrity chef Jamie Oliver attempted to highlight school children's diets as part of his programme Jamie's School Dinners.

Oliver is an advocate of growing your own food and also has a show called Jamie at Home in which he shows what he cooks using food grown in his garden and greenhouse.