Moray Council gives peas a chance

Bridging the Gap has been exploring effective ways to enable people experiencing a low income to access climate and nature fruit and veg. School food is a powerful tool that can ensure all children have a healthy and sustainable diet with large scale pilots Give Peas a Chance! and Welsh Veg in Schools leading the way and gaining traction in devolved parliaments.

Having successfully worked with Aberdeen City and Highland councils, Soil Association Scotland and Moray Council are now working together to get organic peas into school meals with extended funding from Sustain’s Bridging the Gap. 

Give Peas a Chance! is creating new routes to market for local and organic plant protein, allowing pupils to access healthy and sustainable food. It is a partnership between Soil Association Scotland, pea producer Phil Swire of Balmakewan Farm and Moray, Aberdeen City and Highland councils. The Royal Highland Education Trust (RHET) and the Royal Northern Countryside Initiative (RNCI) are education partners supporting engagement with the peas in schools.

Earlier this year the project won a Children's Food Campaign award, was nominated for a Best of Organic Market award and featured on BBC Scotland's Outdoors. Pilot partners also presented the project at Soil Association's Organic for All campaign event at Scottish Parliament in June.

The organic dried split peas are grown by Phil Swire in Aberdeenshire. Legumes, such as pea plants, fix nitrogen into the soil, making it a climate-friendly protein that also has huge nutritional benefits for Moray’s school pupils. The Council’s school meals menu, launched for the start of the new school year, includes delicious pea-based dishes, such as pea soup and even choc-pea brownies, which have already been a huge hit with pupils.

Phil Swire, farmer and grower at Balmakewan Farm, Laurencekirk, said:

“It’s fantastic to be partnering with Moray Council on this pilot. Growing peas is an important part of our crop rotation and helps keep the farm’s soils healthy. I’m delighted to be able to supply locally grown ingredients into the school meals service, allowing more pupils to give peas a chance!”

The new pea recipes are accompanied by educational activities to show the pupils the farm-to-fork story of the peas, delivered by RHET and RNCI.

Inverness-based Swansons Food Wholesalers has played a crucial role in the pilot. Moray Council school’s fruit and vegetable supplier for 20 years, the company delivers the peas to schools in Moray. The local business, which has employee ownership, started as a greengrocer with two staff in 1991 and has grown into a wholesale business with 40 staff, delivering produce to private and public caterers across Moray and Highland. 

Scott Air, Director at Swansons Wholesalers said:

“It is great to be able to help a Scottish farmer to establish themselves in delivering this fantastic product out to so many schools, helping kids to broaden their minds towards the products they eat.”

Bridging the Gap will publish findings from all nine pilots in November 2025. 

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