School chefs will share recipes on TikTok at parents’ request

Rocca al Mare School’s head chef, Antti Utno, said parents began asking for the school’s recipes because their children enjoyed the food so much. Speaking on ERR’s Radio 2 programme “R2 Hommik!”, Utno said the school decided to publish cooking videos on TikTok and other social media.

“School food certainly does not make children overweight, because we monitor the calorie content and provide them with nutritious meals,” Utno said. He added that the school uses natural ingredients and does not prepare food from packets. Instead of using powdered stock, the kitchens make their own stock from bones.

The school’s chefs also bake every day for its cafeteria. Utno said they use one versatile dough to make both sweet and savoury products.

According to Utno, pupils are happy to eat fish soup and liver at school. He said parents had written to ask what the school did to make their children eat foods they refused at home, and to request the recipes.

“We thought we would not start writing to everyone individually, so we came up with the idea of making videos for TikTok. They became so viral that we now publish cooking videos on social media for everyone to watch,” Utno said.

The school has five kitchens and 15 chefs. Each kitchen has a chef in charge, while Utno supports and supervises them. The school has about 3,000 pupils.

“Our principle is that when we prepare food, we must also want to eat it ourselves,” Utno said.

The chefs cook stock at night for at least 12 hours and for up to three days.