On December 6, 2025, the kitchen of Nghia Tan Secondary School in Hanoi was livelier than usual. Instead of preparing a regular school lunch, teachers, parents and students came together to take part in a trial cooking competition for new menus designed specifically for secondary school students.
The activity, “Cooking New Menus – School Meals with Our Children” created a hands-on learning space where different stakeholders could explore, discuss and put into practice principles for building balanced, healthy school meals suited to students of this age group.
Early in the morning, Nguyen Phi Van and his child from Nam Trung Yen Secondary School arrived at the venue to prepare ingredients for the practical cooking session. Alongside Mr. Van, many other parents and students enthusiastically joined the menu-testing activity.
This event was organised as part of the GoodFood@School Project, implemented by Rikolto in collaboration with the Center for Community Development Initiatives and Environment (C&E) at Nghia Tan Secondary School. It brought together more than 100 participants, including nutrition experts, students, parents, teachers and food service providers from four secondary schools in Hanoi, including Nam Trung Yen, Nghia Tan, Truong Cong Giai and Yen Hoa.
At the beginning of the event, Ms. Vuong Thi Ho Ngoc, MSc, the project’s nutrition expert, presented the specific nutritional needs of students aged 12 to 14. Key principles such as balancing food groups and limiting sugar and salt intake were strongly emphasised to support students’ long-term health. The importance of including adequate amounts of vegetables, fruits, milk, calcium, oil-rich nuts, fish and seafood in students’ daily diets was also highlighted.
Sharing at the event, Ms. Chu Thi Nhu Quynh, Vice Principal of Nghia Tan Secondary School, said:
“Nutrition education for secondary school students is along-term process that requires persistence, dedication and truly creative approaches. This cooking competition is not only an experiential activity, but also an opportunity to plant accurate nutritional knowledge in students’ minds, helping them develop healthy eating habits from an early age.”
The most anticipated part of the event began when the teams joined in the cooking competition. Each team - made up of students, parents and teachers from each school - worked together to prepare two menus from the project’s newly developed menu set. This menu set was developed by nutrition experts from the GoodFood@School Project to ensure balanced and nutritious diets while remaining within the schools’ budget constraints. From ingredient preparation and cooking to presentation, all steps were carried out directly in the school kitchen.
Bo Xuan Huyen Anh, a student from Truong Cong Giai Secondary School, shared enthusiastically:
“I’m very happy to be able to cook together with parents and teachers.”
Like Huyen Anh, many students expressed their excitement about preparing meals for themselves and their peers, making the experience more meaningful and relatable.
From a parent’s perspective, Nguyen Phi Van said that taking part in the school kitchen helped him better understand how the school prepares daily lunches for students, making him feel more reassured. While carefully carving carrots to decorate the dishes, he also guided students step by step.
“Cooking together with our children is also a way to help them develop a love for food and appreciate daily meals more,” Van added.
Each menu selected and prepared by the schools reflected the flexible application of nutritional principles, such as balancing food groups and limiting seasonings, while still meeting the required components and portions within a budget of 35,000 VND per student (approximately USD1.4 per meal)
Many dishes stood out for their appealing presentation, such as the meal prepared by Nam Trung Yen Secondary School, as well as for their creative nutritional combinations. Examples included boiled bok choy served with teriyaki sauce from Yen Hoa Secondary School, which offered a novel flavour and encouraged students to eat more vegetables. Other dishes, such as stir-fried minced pork with carrots and sweet corn from Nghia Tan Secondary School, and ginger chicken from Truong Cong Giai Secondary School, reflected careful ingredient selection while maintaining freshness throughout the cooking process.
At the end of the event, all teams were recognised withdifferent awards based on evaluations by the judging panel and participating teams:
Looking ahead to the next steps in implementing the new menus in schools, Ms. Le Thi Thu Ha, a teacher at Yen Hoa Secondary School, shared: “Close collaboration between the project, schools, school kitchens and parents is the key factor in helping new menus be gradually accepted by students.”
In practice, designing school meals that are nutritious, nutritious, suitable for students’ needs and still within schools’ budget limits is far from simple. Throughout this process, the openness and willingness of students and parents to accompany change play a crucial role, especially when students are introduced to new dishes and cooking methods that may differ from familiar home meals. At the same time, schools and kitchen teams need to closely monitor feedback and make timely adjustments to ensure meals become increasingly appropriate and well received.
For Rikolto, connecting and encouraging the participation of all relevant stakeholders throughout the process of exploring, testing and refining school meals - tailored to the specific conditions of each school - is a core part of the GoodFood@School Project’s long-term approach. Through activities such as the “Cooking New Menus – School Meals with Our Children” competition, spaces for dialogue and co-creation between schools, families, students and partners are fostered, contributing step by step to a positive school environment where healthy, nutritious and sustainable meals become a familiar part of students’ daily school life.
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