Unilever offers students a healthy education

Unilever Food Solutions has launched a Health & Nutrition training programme to help lecturers raise awareness and improve catering students' knowledge of nutrition in the workplace.

The training programme complements a new "Principles of nutrition in food production environments" unit that has been added to the Qualification Credits Framework.

Tracey Rogers, managing director of Unilever Food Solutions, said: "We want to empower chefs of the future to recognise the influence they can have over their customers' health. Times are changing, as are consumer needs, so we want to ensure we're equipping young chefs with the right knowledge and skill set for when they enter the workplace."

Delivered by expert lecturers, the one-day training programme is made up of seven sessions, including the building blocks of nutrition, catering for special diets and retaining nutritional content when cooking. Students completing the programme will receive a formal qualification through vocational educational organisation City & Guilds.

The process to create the health and nutrition training programme and qualification began in 2011 when the business worked with the Professional Association of Catering Education (PACE) to understand lecturers' views on nutrition. Since then, it's worked closely with PACE, and other associations, to develop the programme.