‘Guided visits’: children and retailers share a mutual learning experience

During the school year that has just ended, 62 retail establishments took part in an activity that puts children and adolescents in touch with retailers: guided visits. This is an initiative that teaches and educates youngsters about the value of local shops. Xarcuteries Bosch, from El Clot, are now veterans on this programme. They have taken part in the initiative for the last five years and nearly 3,000 children mainly aged 4 to 11 will have passed through their shop in C/ Mallorca to learn about the trade of a retailer and the products they sell.

This activity is part of the “Commerce and schools” programme, along with the responsible consumption workshops, emblematic establishment route “Geoemblemàtics” and making bookmarks, which are printed, distributed around the city and can win a prize.

Sílvia Domene is part of the Xarcuteries Bosch team and welcomes the schoolchildren along with Jordi Bosch when they visit the butcher’s shop. . “The children are surprised that the shop attends to customers personally and they also discover a whole new world when we talk about the product, what it is and what parts of a chicken we eat, for example!”, she explains. Attending to a customer personally is one of the virtues of small shops. Other identity signs that local commerce wants to embrace are the quality of the product and the knowledge of the retailers. 

Like Xarcuteria Bosch, many of the participating businesses are visited by children from nearby schools. Groups of 25 to 30 children are formed and visits lasting one and a half hours are organised one day a week. There is a theoretical part on the actual business, the guild it belongs to and the product it sells.  The second part consists of a practical workshop where the children are the ones who make the product.

“It’s rewarding work. Even though it has to be well organised so we can all enjoy it, which involves a big effort”, says Sílvia. There are also amusing moments. At Bosch they decided to talk about chicken in the theoretical part. Often the children listen to Jordi’s explanations with curiosity, especially when he assures them you only get two pieces of breast and two thighs from one chicken... Or that the nuggets are not bred! Jokes aside, the Bosch butchers chose chicken after taking various factors into account, such as food allergies, a process they also applied when they chose veal (and also made burgers) for the practical part. Watch the video made by Betevé where children from the Balmanya school talk about their experience when they visited the Bosch butcher’s shop.

The practical workshop highlights above all the importance of hygiene in preparing food and, after the test, the children learn about the characteristics of meat and how the patty is prepared. After that it's the children's turn to make their own hamburgers, following Jordi’s instructions, which they can then take home. 

“It’s an activity where we all learn. As retailers we do too because we see how we can help to teach children and make them aware of what we eat, and it also helps us to get to know who will be our new customers in the future”, says Sílvia.

Besides  those that took part in this year’s guided visits, more than a dozen other establishments have signed up to take part next year. Schools, on the other hand, have until 16 October to register for this and other activities.