West Sussex County Council: West Sussex Food and Drink Month 2008

Did you know that we've been trying to get children to take a healthy lunchbox to school for 2000 years! Fishbourne Roman Palace, one of the generous sponsors of our healthy local lunchbox competition can tell you all about the Roman schoolboy's lunch. Actually, it's not all that different to what we think of as healthy now.

Earlier this year, we invited primary school children to take part in a competition to design a healthy lunchbox, with at least two ingredients being locally sourced. At the closing date, we had 669 entries from 14 schools. The standard was really high, and our judges had very difficult decisions to make to choose a winner for each year group.

At Apple Day on 5th October, our winners received their prizes from Deborah Urquhart, Cabinet Member for Environment and Economy. It was a soggy, wet day but the children's enthusiasm was only slightly dampened after they received a family ticket to a West Sussex attraction. You can see the winning entries here.

Prizes were generously donated by Fishers Farm Park, RSPB Pulborough Brooks Nature Reserve, Wildfowl and Wetland Trust, Arundel, Fishbourne Roman Palace, Weald and Downland Open Air Museum and Amberley Working Museum. We are extremely grateful for their support.