News Releases

27 April 2020

Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Foundation partners with Saputo Dairy Australia

We are excited to announce new resources for educators and a competition for students as part of the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Foundation’s three-year partnership with Saputo Dairy Australia. To respond to the Covid-19 crisis, a collection of new resources has been created for educators, teachers and specialists to conduct with students remotely if needed. The collections are a flexible suite of resources for use by the wider school community, including parents.

As the Kitchen Garden Foundation’s ‘Professional Development Partner’, Saputo is assisting the Foundation to deliver professional development to educators, teachers and specialists at over 2000 Australian schools and services delivering the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Program.

“It is wonderful to have the support of Saputo to deliver our professional development service. We have a shared interest in supporting regional communities, and with the help of the impressive range of dairy products produced by Saputo we can encourage a hands-on approach to creating delicious food in our participating schools and centres. With Saputo’s support teachers, educators and specialists from metropolitan and regional areas are learning more about pleasurable food education and take it back into their schools and services.” Stephanie Alexander AO, Founder of the Kitchen Garden Foundation. 

The Foundation’s expert training team delivers professional development sessions across Australia. Sessions are practical, fun and flexible, and tailored to suit the needs of any educator, at any stage of their kitchen garden program. Due to Covid-19, these sessions are currently delivered by webinar and video conferencing.

New kitchen garden educators can attend professional development sessions to establish their skills and ensure they have the knowledge to provide pleasurable food education to their school or service.

Those with a more established program can attend sessions designed to establish skills in encouraging a whole-school and curriculum-integrated approach to their kitchen garden program. These sessions are also integral for teachers and educators to establish a network of peers and share ideas, tips and tricks with the kitchen garden community.

“Our partnership with the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Foundation is helping to deliver pleasurable food education that provides children with the skills and experiences that can lead to lifelong positive food behaviours. Saputo’s support reflects our business values and promise to build a future we can be proud of, including the promotion of healthy lifestyle habits through responsible food and nutrition choices. Eating nutritious food is always important, and particularly so during this challenging time for communities.” Rita Marigliani, Head of Corporate Responsibility and Communication, Saputo Dairy Australia.

“Partnerships are essential to the Kitchen Garden Foundation’s work and we’re proud to have Saputo as part of our kitchen garden family. This partnership will help us to build capacity in local communities by assisting us to deliver professional development directly to teachers and educators, and will assist us to continue to teach children the importance of including cheese, milk, butter and yoghurt in their daily meals.” Josephene Duffy, CEO of Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Foundation.

Today the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Foundation and Saputo Dairy Australia are also launching a fun competition for children to do at home or at school involving recycled creative crafting using milk cartons.   Further details will be sent to Program and Member schools, with the chance to win a hamper of Saputo Dairy Australia products to the value of $1,000 for their school program.

-ENDS-

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About the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Foundation

The Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Foundation is a not-for-profit organisation that provides the inspiration, information, professional development and support for any interested educational setting or health body to access and deliver pleasurable food education. Pleasurable food education is a fun, hands-on approach to teaching students about fresh, seasonal, delicious food so they can form positive food habits for life. The Foundation supports more than 2000 Australian early childhood services, primary and secondary schools all over Australia – and this community is growing.

 

For more information visit www.kitchengardenfoundation.org.au

 

About Saputo Dairy Australia

Saputo Dairy Australia produces, markets and distributes a wide range of high quality dairy products for the domestic and international markets including cheese, fluid milk, extended shelf-life milk and cream products, cultured products and dairy ingredients. We are the largest dairy processor in Australia. Our products are sold in several countries under well-known brand names such as Caboolture, COON, Cracker Barrel*, Devondale, Great Ocean Road, King Island Dairy, Liddells, Mersey Valley, MG Ingredients, Mil Lel, South Cape, Sungold and Tasmanian Heritage. We are part of Saputo Inc., one of the top ten dairy processors in the world.

 

Visit us online: www.saputodairyaustralia.com.au | www.saputo.com

 

*Trademark used under license.

 

Media enquiries:

Please contact Thomas Hunt, Engagement & Development Manager, SAKGF on (03) 8415 1993 or 0467 688 600.

 

Interviews available with Josephene Duffy, CEO, Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Foundation.

Photos available on request.