LESSONS IN TASTE WITH THE “FONDATION POUR L’INNOVATION ET LA TRANSMISSION DU GOÛT”

The Lessons in Taste supported by the Michelin Corporate Foundation since 2018 aim to help very young children discover the riches of our land: its local products, their seasonality, and how to eat them as part of a balanced diet.

Since 1990, more than 5.5 million kindergarten and primary-level pupils have been attending these lessons in their classroom during the outstanding Week of Taste (Semaine du Goût). This is a key moment in school life for many of them who do not know about certain fruit and vegetables, nor about the origin of certain processed food products such as potato chips or breaded fish.

Classes can register with only a few clicks on the site www.legout.com to welcome a food professional working “from field to fork” – a chef, a baker, a beekeeper or a cattle breeder – who volunteers in classrooms to give a demo “Lesson in Taste”.

Teachers are given fun educational kits to help them organise learning games and activities, and they can also use teaching materials. These teachings aids have been approved by the CSGA (the Centre for Taste and Feeding Behavior: this research unit belongs to the INRA Dijon, i.e. National Institute for Agricultural Research, AgroSup Dijon, the CNRS, i.e. French National Centre for Scientific Research, and the University of Burgundy–Franche-Comté).

The “Fondation pour l’Innovation et la Transmission du Goût” (Foundation for Innovation and Transmission of Taste), which combats social inequality and food exclusion, aims to extend these lessons throughout the year in order to educate future generations about the importance of “Eating Well”.