Aeres VMBO Lelystad wins School Canteen Challenge Flevoland 2025

Healthy and tasty canteen snack

'Create your ideal healthy canteen snack'. With this challenge, secondary school students in Flevoland set to work creating a healthy and tasty canteen snack for their school. The snack had to meet the 5 Gs: Enjoyment, Good value, Healthy, Convenience and Green. In other words, the snack had to be tasty, affordable, comply with the Wheel of Five, be easy to prepare in a canteen setting and be sustainable. In addition, students were asked to set up a campaign to promote the snack among their fellow students.

The final with chef Sharon de Miranda

The teams with the ‘oatmeal muffin’, the ‘pizza toastie’ (Aeres VMBO Lelystad) and ‘Wraptastisch!’ (Porteum Lelystad) were invited to the final at Aeres University of Applied Sciences Almere. With guidance from Flevoland chef Sharon de Miranda, they were allowed to further refine their snacks. The students then presented their final products to the jury, and of course there was tasting involved. The jury chose the ‘oatmeal muffin’ because it is a tasty, easy and healthy snack that is simple to prepare and keeps well.

The jury consisted of Stijn Steenmeijer (The Waste to Success), Tom Kooiman (Stad&Natuur), Jella Ringeling (intern at the Urban Food Issues research group), Sara Smaal and Yassir Sefu (Aeres University of Applied Sciences).

Students at the helm of the canteen

For every school, it is a challenge: how do you provide a canteen with a healthy range of products that is also attractive enough to students that they do not all go looking for a cheap snack outside the school? The School Canteen Challenge was launched in 2021 as part of the Jong Leren Eten Flevoland program. The challenge offers an accessible and low-threshold way to give students more control over their own canteen. The challenge also fits well with the Healthy School Canteen program of the Netherlands Nutrition Centre. This nationwide program encourages schools to make their food environments healthier and more sustainable.

The Jong Leren Eten program is an initiative of the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality (LNV) and is implemented in the province of Flevoland by Aeres University of Applied Sciences Almere in cooperation with GGD Flevoland.