Feeding Kids Meat is Child Abuse

QMS employs an in-house dietitian who is our
health and education coordinator. QMS undertakes a wide range of activities
aimed at communicating the importance of red meat in a healthy diet to ensure
that the message about the importance of red meat is reinforced up and down the
country year round.

These include:

School
visits – in the past year QMS performed more than 100 free demonstrations
in Scottish schools with our health and education coordinator informing the
children about a healthy diet and a well-known chef demonstrating how to prepare
simple nutritious dishes with red meat. During the coming year we aim to
substantially upweight the number of demonstrations undertaken – full details
still to be announced.

Meat
Voucher for Schools – in the past year we rolled out the previously
regional schools meat voucher scheme to a national platform with every secondary
school in

Scotland

eligible to receive a meat voucher worth up to £100 per school, to spend at
their local butcher. The voucher scheme aims to tackle the problem of tight
school budgets meaning teachers were unable to afford to use red meat in cookery
classes and young people were leaving school without ever cooking with red meat.
Uptake in the first year of the scheme was on target at 60% – we aim to increase
uptake next year. A kit, including Scotch Beef branded aprons and recipe books
featuring red meat dishes is included with the voucher.

Scottish
Education Awards: QMS supports the Health and Wellbeing Category of the
Scottish Education Awards open to all Scottish schools with Daily Record as
media partner.

Top
student award: QMS sponsors the top student award in Hospitality Practical
Cookery Intermediate 2 courses.

Publications:
QMS publishes a range of free publications including Performance Plus, a sports
nutrition guide, and Getting the Balance Right, a guide to healthy eating.

Partners:
QMS works closely with the Food Standards Agency and others such as Love Food
Hate Waste on its publications and other activities

Champions
in Schools: QMS supports the Winning Scotland Foundation's Champions in
Schools activity which sees 30 top inspirational sportspeople visit schools
across

Scotland

with red meat's role in a healthy diet part of the key messages during school
visits.

Butchers
Health Campaign 2011: QMS has recently undertaken a campaign in butchers'
shops around the country featuring rugby ace Chris Paterson to flag up the
importance of red meat in a healthy diet. The campaign was very well received
and generated substantial media coverage. Red meat has played an important role
in Chris's recovery from injury while representing his country on the
international rugby pitch.

Farm
Visits: QMS works closely with RHET and is supporting a new campaign to
upweight livestock farm visits by children which will be announced shortly.

New
packed lunch recipe book: This will be launched around Easter along with a
new Meat Matters branded lunch box.

Scottish

Rugby
schools activity: This will see around 30 visits by high profile players to
Scottish schools to raise the profile of red meat as part of a healthy diet.
With 2011 being a rugby world cup year interest in the sport will be keen over
the coming months.

Royal
Highland Show: Along with our established activity with children at the QMS
stand (livestock and health and education talks/games etc) a tranche of new
activity at the show will be announced soon.Events: In
the past year QMS has undertaken Health and Education activities at numerous
events throughout the country to communicate red meat's role in a healthy diet
including – RHET Food and Farming Days; BBC Good Food Show; Taste of Grampian;
BNF conference; National Food and Drink Conference; Food and Health Alliance;
Eco schools events; Holyrood Obesity Conference; Eco schools parliamentary
conference debate; Scottish Learning Festival (where PETA also had a stand)