A MAJOR award has been won by food manufacturer Hollands for its bid to get youngsters to develop a passion for pies.

The Baxenden firm scooped £15,000 in the 'Food from Britain' industry awards for its work with local schoolchildren.

The award comes just weeks after the firm won the Business in the Community award in the Lancashire Evening Telegraph East Lancashire Business Awards for its work in developing an education pack for schools.

After exploring possible ways to foster stronger links with youngsters, employees came up with an idea to use education as the bridge.

The firm contacted the Education Business Partnership who helped arrange site visits for teachers to come and experience food manufacturing and employees have gone into local schools to talk about the processes involved in making its famous products.

An education pack, including a video, has now been produced which can be used either in junior schools or in conjunction with the national curriculum.

"We are extremely pleased our project has won this backing. Our overall aim is to encourage younger consumers to include pies in their meal repertoire,' said Dilys Day, marketing manager for Hollands.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.