Employee of the Year 2023

A School Cook who has dedicated her work to providing healthy and nutritious meals with a twist is The Highland Council’s Employee of the Year 2023.

Anja Fuglestad, Cook in Charge at Croy Primary School, has poured her creativity and passion into enhancing children’s dining experience through her fun and original ways to present food. Anja’s fruit and vegetable recipes have been rolled out to other schools within Highland for others to benefit from her tasty creations. 

In her recent role as a 'Food for Life Ambassador', Anja is now working with the whole school community to look at the food journey together by starting a school and community growing project. She plans to link this with the cookery lessons she has already started with pupils highlighting Scottish produce and seasonal growth.

Education Committee Chair, Cllr John Finlayson said: “I would like to congratulate Anja on her recent awards and thank her for the work she does to make creative and healthy school meals available to the children in her school. Her work with both the growing project and her cookery lessons are also of great benefit to pupils and the wider community who all clearly value all she does.”

Anja was also the recipient of the Employee of the Year Award at the 2022 Scottish School Food Awards.