During the Summer holidays we restarted our face to face outreach work in Greater Manchester and had the pleasure of teaching a variety of young people on our Future Community Chefs programme. Congratulations to all who took part! Our team helped participants with fundamental cooking skills and prepared a range of healthy meals, improving their confidence in the kitchen and awareness of batch cooking.
Scaling up our fight against food poverty
As a result of the pandemic, over 10 million people are now living in food poverty in the UK. Inequality has widened, those most at risk include:
- Disabled and clinically vulnerable people
- Households with children, particularly lone parents
- Food sector workers
- People from minority ethnic backgrounds
- Households with 5 or more members
In the North-West alone, an additional 4,500 children across Greater Manchester have crossed a poverty threshold and are now eligible for free school meals. That brings the total to approx. 120,000 kids – 26% of all pupils in the region. We believe that everyone in the UK experiencing food poverty should be offered additional support at the point of crisis beyond just a food parcel, assortment of donated items or hot meal. That’s why everyone we support as part of our outreach work also gets free access to our Cooking & Nutrition Portal. Our partner charities can also provide free access to their beneficiaries and individuals can now self-refer for free access too.
Find out more about our nationwide mission to fight food poverty on multiple fronts or become a member to support the work of our community cookery school today!