Chefs Al Brown, Michael Meredith, Peter Gordon and Josh Emett create gourmet yoghurts for The Collective; proceeds will go to charity

Michael Meredith (left), Peter Gordon, Al Brown and Josh Emett have created a range of limited-edition yoghurts for The Collective, which will donate the profits to charity. Photo / Jason Oxenham

Rhubarb grown by local schoolchildren is on the menu at Al Brown's top Auckland restaurant Depot - and the popular stewing vegetable is the star ingredient in a new yoghurt he's created to fundraise for a programme that teaches children to grow and cook their own food.

Brown is one of four top chefs who have designed a range of limited-edition flavours for gourmet yoghurt maker The Collective.

Michael Meredith, Peter Gordon and Josh Emett are also part of the initiative, called Chefs for Good.

The profits from sales of each chef's yoghurt will be donated to a charity they have chosen. Brown's is Garden to Table, which works with schools to teach children to grow fresh food in their school's garden and use the produce to cook healthy meals and for which he has been an ambassador for about five years.

Reminiscing about his own childhood in the Wairarapa had served as Brown's inspiration for his rhubarb and gingerbread yoghurt, which will hit supermarket shelves at the beginning of July.

"I grew up on a farm, so stewed fruit was always a big thing for me. There was no dairy down the end of the road and I had a sweet tooth from day one and we were a frugal bunch, we never threw anything out," he told the Weekend Herald.

"Then I started thinking about puddings - cobblers and crumbles - that sort of thing."

Brown's yoghurt will be in stores for about three to four months before the flavours Meredith, Gordon and Emett have created are phased in.

Angus Allan, co-founder of The Collective, said the company started the initiative to help the community.

Garden to Table's executive director Linda Taylor said the money it received from sales would allow another 3000 children from 100 schools to participate in the programme.

About 129 schools around the country are signed up.

"[Garden to Table is] about giving children the life skills that they need to make better food choices," Taylor said.

"By doing it that way with kids having grown and then cooked the food themselves, they're far more likely to eat vegetables than they are if it's placed in front of them at the dining table at home."

Sales from Meredith's yoghurt will go to the Fred Hollows Foundation, Emett has chosen Melanoma NZ and Gordon the LAM Charitable Trust.