Discover
The Root Cause is a trusted, education partner, with more than a decade of experience collaborating with schools. We keep things fun, while sparking conversations about food, health impacts, education, sustainability, and the environment.
How We Help You
Our WHole School Approach
We partner with you and guide you on your journey to empower your whole school community to create lifelong nourishing friendships with food. We meet you where you are at and take you to where you’d like to be.
We use our unique Food Friendship Framework to identify your school's priorities, then customise a solution to address your priorities whilst integrating your other initiatives.
From our decade of experience of working with schools, we appreciate just how busy you are. That’s why your school will be assigned a passionate Certified Instructor to be your personal mentor for the duration of the program.
For more information about the program, click the Get In Touch button below.
Our Story
from lunchboxes to australia-wide tour & impact
The Root Cause is a social enterprise business established by parents Bel and Israel Smith, following their daughter getting teased about her healthy school lunchboxes.
After identifying a need to better educate kids on the importance of healthy eating, the couple travelled Australia for 2.5 years with their family, educating and learning at over 90 schools.
On this tour, Bel tested and refined the material within the Mad Food Science Incursion with over 20,000 students, parents and teachers – gaining valuable insights into the realities of lunchboxes and food within schools.
Nutrition is at the heart of learning.
– Bel Smith, founder of The Root Cause
From these beginnings, The Root Cause now has a national team of passionate Certified Instructors and over 10 years’ experience working with hundreds of schools across Australia.
We guide schools on their journey toward empowering whole school communities to have lifelong nourishing relationships with food.
Bel (pictured) is one of Australia’s leading independent voices for Children’s Health and author of The Lunchbox Effect.
As noted by Julie Matthews, a respected authority with a Master of Science in Medical Nutrition: "The foods we digest become nutrients for the brain to function." This connection between the body and the brain underscores how daily food choices impact students' readiness to learn, affecting their alertness, concentration, and sleep quality.
Our team of Certified Instructors are ready to lovingly mentor your school on your journey to make friends with food.
Our Certified Instructors
passionate individuals working across australia
With over 10 years of experience collaborating with schools across Australia, we know how extremely busy teachers, admin and school leaders are.
We know making sustainable change can be difficult, especially with everything that needs to be ticked off your list.
That is why Making Friends With Food™ by The Root Cause provides your school with a dedicated and passionate Certified Instructor to lovingly guide and mentor you to achieve your goals.
Our team of Certified Instructors are located in different regions across Australia. Find the Certified Instructor closest to you or email us directly, and we will get one of our team to assist you.
One of the most engaging and informative incursions I have been to in my 23 years of teaching!
– Teacher, Glenvale State School
