The entrepreneur behind Ecotricity and owner of Forest Green Rovers football club, Dale Vince has launched a new food company to supply to the school dinners market. The new business, Devil’s Kitchen, seeks to shake up the school meals market, which serves over one billion meals a year.
Devil’s Kitchen benefits from the experience that has been gathered by catering to football fans and players from Forest Green Rovers, which has recently been recognised by FIFA as ‘the world’s greenest football club’ and the ‘de-facto standard for sustainability in sport,’ by the United Nations.
The Little Green Devils range has been specially designed to cater for children in schools around the UK, with vegetable balls and burgers in the range. Legumes, fruit, vegetables, herbs and spices are the main components of the products, which are also free from the 14 main allergens, including nuts, gluten, seeds and soya.
Dale Vince, Ecotricity founder and chairman of Forest Green Rovers, says: “Our products are simple – just great food made from vegetables for kids – a really good thing. We’ve had an incredible response so far, so we hope to get the Little Green Devils range into as many schools and colleges as possible.”
“Before production has begun we’ve received unexpected interest from university caterers and public attractions who want to take our products. I reckon we’ll complete the full circle and sell our burgers to other football clubs and other sporting venues too – who want to offer vegan food like Forest Green Rovers,” he adds.
The new products have been tested for their protein content and nutritional value to make them suitable for school meals, meeting the requirements.
In addition, the Devil’s Kitchen factory in Gloucestershire is powered by Ecotricity’s renewable and vegan energy sources, and the packaging for the products are fully recyclable and compostable.