About Clean Plate
Clean Plate specialises in providing children, whānau, schools and early learning settings with wholesome recipes, hands-on cooking sessions and educational workshops. We take a food systems approach and focus on reducing the pressure on natural and human resources by focusing on sustainability, while promoting nourishing diets that are good for our bodies as well as the planet.
About Fern
Fern Pereira is a professional Cordon Bleu chef who has moved from hospitality to the education sector about a decade ago, moved by a desire to promote a holistic approach to healthy and sustainable eating to children and their whānau.
Since then, Fern has accumulated considerable experience working as a chef and enviro programme coordinator within early learning settings, and later expanding to managing sustainability community projects in collaboration with various early learning settings, schools and community organisations across Auckland.
Fern is currently completing her Master of Public Health, at Auckland University of Technology. Her study investigates the healthiness and sustainability status of Year 6 students’ lunchboxes across Auckland schools. To find out more about Fern’s academic journey, visit her AUT student profile.
“If we are to grow into healthy adults and live healthy lives, education around good nutrition needs to start in our early years,” says Fern. “I firmly believe the ECE cook is an integral part of the ECE team, making the kitchen and the food prepared in it another avenue for children’s learning. Clean Plate is all about making this easy to do.”
Collaborators
Shelley O’Connor - Graphic Designer
Shelley has developed the Clean Plate brand personality, and then worked to communicate this identity across Clean Plate assets such as the website, advertising and publications. She designed and produced the "My Lunchbox Journey: Uncovering Science And Facts" e-Book and "Clean Plate Less Waste Lunchbox Cookbook".
In addition to this, she joined forces with Fern to facilitate the workshops which were run as part of the cookbook process.