The campaign, a partnership between the School Food Trust and the WaltDisney Company, features characters from the forthcoming Disneychildren's film 'Ratatouille'. It follows reports that 178,000 fewerpupils from UK primary schools are taking school dinners than there weretwo years ago.
The campaign consists of six exclusive posters commissioned by Disneyand an online Ratatouille game and competition teaching children aboutfood. Charlie Cain, vice-president of Corporate Brand Management forEurope at Disney, said, 'We approached the School Food Trust about apossible partnership, as we think Disney can help to take the healthyfood message into schools. The "Ratatouille" film is ideal forencouraging children to have healthy school meals.'
The partnership follows a report by consumers' rights group Which? thatcriticised companies such as Disney for allowing cartoon characters tobe used to promote unhealthy food to children in marketing and packaging(News, 29 August).
Mr Cain said that Disney had introduced new guidelines in October 2006restricting the use of its name and characters to products meetingagreed limits on calories, fat and saturated sugar, but that existingcontracts with manufacturers mean Disney cannot phase out the use of itscharacters to promote certain foods until the end of 2008.