The Project

Why Green Apron?

Green Apron reacts to the urgent demand for skills to prepare balanced meals with plant-based cuisine.

The traditional vocational chef education and training (VET) in Europe does not yet consider the know-how and the skills for a sustainable and balanced cuisine with low or no content of animal products. The lack of knowledge in this field leads to insufficient skills of chefs and caterers to meet the new needs of their customers.

Project overview:

The meat-reduced cuisine is currently experiencing an unprecedented rising tendency. The Eurispes report 2013 shows that in Italy plant-based eaters are 8% ( 6,9 vegetarians 1,1 vegan).

The most named reason is individual health (42,3%), yet for women the main reason is animal rights (66,9%) further reasons are climate protection (13%) and financial aspects (11%).

That is the reason for a growing demand of skills to prepare balanced meals containing little or no animal products. The traditional vocational chef education and training (VET) in Europe does not yet consider the know-how and the skills for a sustainable and balanced cuisine with low or no content of animal products. The lack of knowledge in this field leads to insufficient skills of chefs and caterers to meet the new needs of their customers.

In addition to customer demands, sustainability standards have become a major component within caterers’ corporate social responsibility policy. Considering a food selection of low CO2- equivalents is a practical form of environmental protection. According to the “Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations” (FAO), livestock husbandry is accountable for at least 18 % of the man-made pollution causing the greenhouse effect (in comparison: traffic holds 16 %). The project enhances the cooking staff’s competence in terms of sustainability.

Also the vast majority of the European population have unhealthy eating habits. According to scientific studies, e.g. the “China Study” of the Cornell University, long-term studies of the German Cancer Research Centre and the American Dietetic Association several diet-related diseases, like cardiovascular disease, adipose, diabetes, gout and certain kinds of cancer could be prevented with a healthy, meat-reduced nutrition. In the White Paper “Nutrition, Obesity, Adiposity: A Strategy for Europe” the EU commission observes that the amount of overweight and obese children approximates 30% in 2007. Nutritional competence, as passed on to chefs through Green Apron, can help to implement a balanced and tasty choice of food in Europe’s restaurants.

Objectives:

To face these needs and request Green apron aims at developing the production and dissemination of a curriculum and training material of a 100-hour-module. Translated into 4 languages (English, French, Italian and Spain(?) ) and enriched by modern multimedia content (3D-animated movies, e-learning modules, cooking videos, (we can also imagine to create a sort of cartoon developing the curriculum in the dvd and be the Cicerone) the project results are exploited in the national educational systems. The Green Apron curriculum will be based on standards of the European Qualification Framework for lifelong learning (EQF). EQF is a “Meta-framework” that “has been designed to act as a reference for different qualifications systems and frameworks in Europe.” It “provides a common reference framework which assists in comparing the national qualifications systems, frameworks and their levels. It serves as a translation device to make qualifications more readable and understandable across different countries and systems in Europe, and thus promote lifelong and life-wide learning, and the mobility of European citizens whether for studying or working abroad.” (http://ec.europa.eu/eqf/home_en.htm)

Actions:

1- A research: the training system in the different countries with a special focused on the hotel/cuisine training education.
2- Common development of the 100 hour curriculum on plant-based diet following the EQF standards/ECVET qualification.
3- Training for trainers (teachers will be trained on the use of the training material and on the contents. They will be trained also on nutritional facts of an healthy plant-based diet).
4- Training for students (they will be trained during their normal lessons where the Green apron curriculum will be integrated).
5- Piloting the Green Apron curriculum and evaluation of the results.
6- Dissemination activities.
7- Evaluation activities.