Year of Young People

We run campaigns aimed at helping young people make healthier food choices, such as our recent #NoToUpsizing campaign, and campaigns aiming to help make sure you're cooking safely. No one wants to commit a Kitchen Crime that could end up with a bout of food poisoning, and avoid Pink Chicken!

We’re meeting freshers across Scotland to find out how many kitchen crimes they commit and help them start of their college or university experience with information on food safety and healthy eating. Check out the roadshow dates below. We’ve also been at the Edinburgh International Science Festival and meeting young people – and farmers - at the Royal Highland Show. We’ll also be at the Scottish Learning Festival in September to get our interactive digital resources into more teachers’ hands.

• Student Roadshows 2018
• Scottish Learning Festival 2018
• Edinburgh International Science Festival 2018
• The Royal Highland Show 2018

We partnered with Young Scot for our recent healthy eating campaign, #NoToUpsizing, to encourage the younger generation to say no thanks more often when they’re asked to ‘go large’, ‘add a side’ or ‘make it a deal’.  We’ll be working more with Young Scot over the coming weeks and months. We also worked with universities and colleges throughout Scotland who lent their support to the campaign.

For our Summer Food Safety campaign, ‘Pink Chicken’, our partnership work included supermarkets Co-op, Aldi and Tesco, and Cricket Scotland, who helped spread the word: “Don’t let Pink Chicken Spoil Your Summer”.

Our Kitchen Crimes food safety campaign saw us link up with Lidl who helped distribute 20,000 sticker leaflets at till points, asking people to check their kitchen crime records.

Check your criminal record in our Kitchen Crimes Quiz or see how many calories you could save by saying no in our #NoToUpsizing game! Share results with your friends on social media and see who can score the highest. Nothing like a bit of healthy competition!

Food Standards Scotland is providing funding to match the Royal Environmental Health Institute of Scotland’s contribution to deliver the Elementary Food Hygiene Course to 10,000 secondary school pupils in 2018. The REHIS Schools Food Hygiene Initiative is available to all secondary schools in Scotland for pupils aged between 13 and 18, and is vital training for anyone thinking about a career in catering.

• Find out more

We would love to hear if you've taken part in the REHIS training and would like to share your experience of working in the food industry with young people. You can contact us via communications@fss.scot.

FSS has a variety of free online healthy eating and food safety resources which support the Health and Wellbeing area of Curriculum for Excellence.

Activities include interactive tools and worksheets, and are targeted at P1 through to S2 pupils.  Teachers and pupils can search by age, stage or topic.

• Search for education resources

Check out the blogs from younger people working at FSS or in the food industry. We hope you’ll be inspired to think about a career in the food and drink sector.

It might be the first time you’ve been away from home preparing your own food, or you might not be sure of the best way to cook something, so instead of risking it, check our food safety and healthy eating advice below.

• Food safety advice
• Healthy eating advice

Got any questions about food safety or healthy eating? Feel free to ask us on social media or get in touch by email at communications@fss.scot

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