FoodLab gets cooking

We have had an incredibly creative start to our FoodLab program, with Year 8 and Year 9 students from St Monica’s SC, Epping SC, and Lalor North SC taking on the challenge. Our current FoodLab program centres on a collaboration with local industry partner, Costa Mushrooms. As a Design Challenge, local students are challenged to design an innovative solution to the problem of mushroom stem waste.

Using the design thinking process, the students have developed a deeper understanding of the problems humans face in terms of food waste, sustainable farming, and meat consumption. Using this knowledge, they have then come up with ways to tackle these problems using mushroom stems. By experimenting with flavour, texture, visual aesthetics and presentation, the students came up with innovative products that used mushroom stems as a main ingredient.

With a wide array of high-tech commercial cooking equipment available, the students so far have whipped up a variety of creative products, including: mushroom bolognese, smoked mushroom burgers, honey-infused mushroom cookies, and even lemon-mushroom sorbet! We can’t wait to see what further creations the students come up with next.