REAL Food (Real Education Active Lives), a market garden based social business, started up 2 years ago in the High School to provide pupils with opportunities for personal development, work experience and community involvement by linking business to the normal school activities.

Real Food broke school ground for the first time in spring 2006 and sold its first produce that same summer. Pupils have a range of ways in which they can be involved such as the gardening club, the eco-schools group and through courses such as Rural Skills, currently taught in S3. The Technology, Geography, Science and Home Economics departments also use the farm as a teaching resource. Nearly an acre of the school ground has been dug up, with three polytunnels and drills of summer crops such as salad leaves, cabbages, spinach, onions, beetroot and much more in well looked after rows. Everything here is grown organically and fertilised with seaweed harvested from Clachnaharry.

The marketing side is really developing and pupils are learning all about retail. We are working with primary school-based ‘village markets’, setting up for a couple of hours on a Saturday morning in each location. And we seem to be pushing at open doors. Local people really want a real alternative when it comes to buying their food. The scale of this is developing all the time and pupils are also buying in other products to sell alongside the farm goods to offer a good choice of fresh local food. During the winter, when our farm is not producing so much, we take in wholesale vegetables from other local farmers. The pupils run other local markets on a regular basis as well. These include the headquarters of Scottish Natural Heritage above Kinmylies, where they set up a stall to sell to staff. REAL Food has also supplied one of the city's top restaurants, The Mustard Seed, with salad leaves.

For young people like Jennifer MacDonald, from St Valery Avenue, REAL Food has been a positive experience: "I think our produce is healthier than the stuff you could buy from a supermarket because you know it's freshly out of the ground," she says. "I've found it a very good experience. I've been planting cabbages and lettuces, making soil blocks and helping with the harvesting." But she admits the financial side of the venture is more of a challenge. "Business, I have learnt, is not as easy as it looks," she says. "I struggle with the maths bit of the business, so it usually takes me forever to add up everything."


In addition, Real Food ties in to the schools health promotion agenda. We have a health promotion group working closely with the school meals service and some of the Real Food produce has already been served up at school lunches. We are very much aware of the link between good diet and learning, and are forging clear working relationships with two community healthy eating initiatives at the JCCC and the Jannies Hoose.

Come along and see us on Thursdays 12.15 - 2.25pm. Run by volunteers.

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