Eat Them To Defeat Them is the award-winning campaign for primary and special schools which encourages children to eat more veg by making it fun. The programme moves away from traditional five-a-day messaging to a concept designed for children – one they find fun and engaging.
Over 2 million different children have participated since it launched in 2019 making it the largest and best evidenced food education programme in the UK.
The 2027 programme will once again be kindly sponsored by Sainsbury’s and funded by an alliance of local authorities and vegetable growers.
How can schools get involved?
The programme returns to primary & special schools for a ninth year in February 2027. It will again be 100% free for schools.
It is designed to be flexible around your school. Some schools do a simple single theme day; others make it a main theme for 5-6 weeks and a few just send the packs home with the children. It’s up to you.
How does this support caterers?
Eat Them to Defeat Them’s success comes from bringing together activities in the classroom, engagement with school lunches and support at home.
The programme is proven to increase school meal uptake and reduce plate waste. It is also easy and great fun for the catering teams bringing them even closer to the children and community they serve.
How do we extend the programme into homes?
Eat Them to Defeat Them has a huge long-term impact as it is designed to turn the positive experience in school to good habits at home.
Every child receives a reward chart and sticker pack to take home. Every parent and carer can access our online support packed full of expert tips and advice on how to get even the most cautious children eating more veg.
How can local authorities support this programme?
Eat Them to Defeat Them is primarily funded by local authority public health teams. It is a reliable, highly effective and cost-effective way to increase children’s dietary health.
Please contact our team for more information.
How can corporate sponsors and growers get involved?
Many growers and retailers fund schools to take part in their community. This helps to strengthen community relations in the areas where they farm or where their teams send their children to schools.
Please get in touch for more details.
How did we do in 2026?
Eat Them to Defeat Them Chapter 8 ran in March 2026 with over 300,000 children across the UK participating.
The theme was Veg Hunters, encouraging children to explore vegetables in the classroom, at lunchtime and at home – feeding their curiosity, explaining the importance of veg but without losing the fun which makes this campaign so effective.
Primary & special schools programme
Over 6,000 primary and special schools have participated in Eat Them to Defeat Them with a fun new theme each year to keep the children engaged.
This time, we’ll be taking children on a colourful journey Around the World, exploring how vegetables are grown, cooked and enjoyed in different countries and cultures. From crunchy carrots to mighty butternut squash, pupils will discover new tastes, fascinating food stories and fun activities that inspire them to eat more veg.
How does it work?
The secret to the programme’s success is that it is super flexible for schools and designed to extend into homes.
The excitement starts at school! This might be an assembly, lessons or other activities. It builds at lunch with tasting events from your caterers and participation stickers for the children.
Crucially it extends to home where we supply families with a reward chart and sticker pack and expert advice to help them repeat, reward and normalise new positive eating habits.
What are schools expected to do?
We understand how stretched schools are. So we have designed the programme to be super flexible to suit your school.
At the most basic level you might just send some information out to the parents and carers and give the children their reward chart and stickers to take home. You could just add the fun assembly, or coordinate with your caterers, or use the lesson plans and other activities. It’s 100% up to you.
What resources do you provide?
As always you can expect amazing take-home packs for children, participation stickers for school lunch, posters and digital flyers to engage parents & carers as well as lesson plans, activities, craft projects and an assembly.
A full programme guide will be available in December.
Why are you making veg scary?
We’re not, it is subtler than that and carefully crafted by behavioural experts.
Eat Them to Defeat Them is fun, it’s a story, a game. We don’t use words like kill and there is no implied threat to people or property. Children understand it is a ruse to get them to eat veg, but they play along because it’s fun. Here’s the secret, most children don’t actually dislike veg, our society has just conditioned them to think they don’t – this programme reboots that thinking.
What can the caterers do?
Many caterers are incredibly supportive and will put on special tasting days, decorations or events to support different vegetables. Others have less capacity but will be able to tell you the days different vegetables feature so you can coordinate around those vegetables.
We supply decoration packs which work well in lunch halls and rolls of participation stickers for your lunchtime team to give to the children when they try different veg.
What are the practicalities and next steps?
The first step is to register your interest. Our team will then look for a funding source to support your school. It might be your local authority, a local vegetable growers, a MAT or another source. We’ll then confirm to you when we have resources secured for your school.
The programme starts after half-term in February. There will be a full programme guide by the end of term in December. Physical resources will be delivered before February half-term. You can run the programme anytime before the end of term and run it for a single day, a single week or spread over the whole period. It’s up to you.
What do schools say…
Every year hundreds of schools share their feedback, here is what they reported in 2026:
What do caterers say?
The programme is proven to increase school meal uptake and reduce plate waste. It is easy and great fun for catering teams bringing them even closer to the children and community they serve.
What do families say…
Every year we ask thousands of parents and children about this campaign:
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