Lab activities
Here you can find the most relevant activities within the Seinäjoki living lab.
The healthy snack kiosk Mahtikiska
The Mahtikiska concept aims to promote healthy lifestyles for children and young people. At Mahtikiska, new healthy snack products are tested and a new kind of business is generated for sports clubs with them. Mahtikiska concept is piloted in a sport club environment and also the Mahtikiska vending machine is in use in the training hall’s hallway.
The Food Business Club: student’s kiosk
The Student Union is activated to work for the better and healthier snacks. The school kiosk is open twice a week. The students themselves in co-operation with the school canteen and with the home economic’s teacher is preparing healthier snacks to sell in the kiosk. Also, the co-operation reduces tha amount of food waste from the school canteen that serves warm free lunches to students every day (included in the Finnish school curriculum).
From school canteens to school restaurants
The aim was to figure out the possible reasons how the school canteen environment affects the school children and their willingness to have free warm school lunches. There were two surveys done: one about the eagerness and frequency of eating school lunches and another was about the social and physical environment’s influence to the eagerness to have school lunches. The work led to development and action within the pilot school.
Food education in an event
The pilot action was to test a visioned model to do food education of children in events. There was a pilot action that reached over 700 elementary school pupils in which there was a pea in the center. The children seeded peas in small self-decorated pots and meanwhile they discussed over the food chain of the pea and found out that food can be grown by oneself as well. The method was planned with a multisensory approach.
Materials:
Youtuber Korpedictus makes a healthier Twix bar himself!
Mahtikiska and the children's food education implemented in Pikkuprovinssi event
Blog post about Mahtikiska (in Finnish)
Blog post about food education (in Finnish)
Food Strategy work
The food strategy work of the city of Seinäjoki is supported by the Cities2030 project activities. Collaboration with universities was started, a framework for the strategy was defined and stakeholder analysis was conducted together with univesities. A study about citizens’ opinions about the importance of the food sector in the region was implemented.
Food knowhow from Seinäjoki Region. The Seinäjoki region is a center of Finnish food expertise. We condense the entire chain of expertise from primary production to processing, research, technology development, machine and equipment manufacturing, logistics and trade. Our goal is clear: sustainable and traceable food. From here to everywhere.