Food Dudes Around the World

In 2005, the Irish Government launched a pilot scheme in 150 primary schools across Ireland, with support from the EU and Industry.  In 2007, the Government decided to introduce Food Dudes to every primary school.  To date, (March, 2010) over 180,000 children in 1,300 primary schools have taken part.

In 2006, the Food Dudes Programme was honoured with a Best Practice Award for Combating Obesity by the World Health Organisation.  It was chosen to receive this prestigious award from among 202 applications from 35 countries.

In 2009, Food Dudes received the accolade  ‘Exemplar case study for Health Behaviour Change’ by the National Social Marketing Research Centre, London.

2010 and beyond …

In England, the programme is currently being rolled out to 20,000 children in 84 primary schools in Wolverhampton in a three-year project supported by Wolverhampton Primary Care Trust, in collaboration with the Worshipful Company of Fruiterers, the School Food Trust and the Horticultural Development Company. In Bedfordshire, nine schools are currently participating and a further four will run the programme in 2010; a pilot in Yorkshire is underway and other regions of England have expressed great interest following the success of the current projects. Further afield, California, US, and Italy (Sicily) began pilot programmes in 2009 and hope to extend the projects on a larger scale in the near future.