10 November 2025

TASTED

Transforming food education through learning

How TastEd is helping children discover a love for healthy food, one lesson at a time, with a flexible LMS from Synergy Learning.

In the UK today, less than 9% of children eat their recommended five-a-day. TastEd is a charity that offers a sensory, hands-on alternative to traditional food education. Founded in 2019 by food writer Bee Wilson, the charity draws on the Sapere method – widely used in Scandinavia – to help children explore fruits and vegetables through the senses.

“We believe children eat what they like, and that they like what they know,” explains Fran Box, Director at TastEd. “We want to give them the chance to get to know real foods in a fun, pressure-free way. It’s about building confidence, familiarity and even joy around healthy eating…the golden rule at TastEd is that there’s no pressure.”

Scaling learning from 10 to 2,000 educators

From just ten schools in 2019, TastEd has grown to support over 2,000 educators. However, this growth brought added complexity.

With limited staff and budget, the charity needed a reliable, scalable and easy-to-use platform where teachers could access their full library of lesson plans, videos and training resources. Their existing system was clunky and manual, which was far from ideal for time-poor teachers.

Fran explains, “We needed something user-friendly, that looked professional and let teachers find exactly what they needed without hassle. We’re a small charity and we needed a better way to support our shift toward more online training.”

We worked with TastEd to develop a Moodle LMS that could deliver on their requirements, customised with Synergy Learning’s exclusive and intuitive Spark LMS theme.

Want to hear from TastEd?

We met with Fran, the director of TastEd, and asked them some questions about their experience working with us.

View TastEd’s case study video here

Moodle LMS and Spark: A simple but powerful LMS solution

From the first conversations, our team at Synergy Learning worked closely with TastEd to understand their unique needs.

“The Synergy Learning team really made the effort to understand us,” says Fran. “They understood and were supportive of what we wanted to achieve, and that we are a small organisation. They understood our limitations to some extent and showed us exactly what they could support us with.”

TastEd’s end users are educators, so the charity needed something straightforward, easy to navigate and slick without the need for in-house technical knowledge. Here’s why Moodle LMS combined with the Spark theme was perfect for their needs:

✅ Simple, clean navigation – Teachers can now easily find resources by year group, topic or lesson type.
✅ Customisation without complexity – TastEd can change the branding and appearance quickly in-house without relying on developers, thanks to Spark.
✅ Professional presentation – The slick, professional user interface builds trust in TastEd’s credibility as a professional organisation.
✅ Interactive communication – Teachers can now engage in two-way conversations via the learning platform.
✅ A centralised resource hub – All content is housed in one place, and any new or featured resources can be promoted easily to teachers.

A big impact for a small charity

Since moving to the Spark-enhanced Moodle platform, TastEd has seen a noticeable improvement in user experience for educators. Teachers are no longer struggling with navigation or hunting through emails to find the right lessons. Everything they need is now housed in one easy-to-use, accessible space.

“We don’t have people struggling to log in or understand where it’s going anymore,” says Fran. “The feedback we have is that the resources are great and the Resource Hub – which is what we call the platform – is great, too. I think the thing we’ve found really beneficial is being able to have a two-way conversation with teachers without having to use lots of different platforms or through email. Now everything is done in one place.”

Teachers are engaging more with the content, finding what they need faster and feeding back directly through the platform. This has helped TastEd build a stronger community of practitioners so they can continuously improve the offering.

What’s next for TastEd and Synergy Learning?

TastEd’s journey – from just 10 schools in 2019 to over 2,000 practitioners today – has been one of remarkable growth. As the need for healthier food education becomes increasingly important, more schools and local authorities are recognising the value of TastEd’s joyful, sensory approach to learning.

TastEd is now aiming to reach 5% of all UK schools and nurseries, while making their online learning experience even more interactive and engaging. Fran says: “While we’ve got quite a lot of work to do, we’re getting so much positive feedback from the schools and nurseries we currently work with. Teachers are downloading and using our materials, but we know there’s even more potential to make that experience interactive and dynamic over time.” Spark and Moodle have already laid the foundation for this, and with time and capacity, we’ll continue to work in partnership with TastEd to help them achieve their vision.

With more children than ever facing poor diets and an overexposure to ultra-processed foods, TastEd’s mission is vital. And thanks to a supportive digital infrastructure, they’re now better positioned than ever to scale their impact.

Synergy Learning was really supportive and understanding of what we wanted to achieve.

The LMS looks really slick so from our perspective as a small charity it helps build schools’ confidence in us as a professional organisation.

– Fran Box | Director | TastEd