Bristol organic retailer Better Food’s Streets to Kitchen fundraising campaign has reached its target of £10,000 to fund a year-long cookery and food service course for people affected by homelessness in the city.
The money is being donated to local charity Square Food Foundation, which has begun hosting weekly classes at St Mungo’s Recovery College, open to all service users at the New Street site in Bristol. The sessions help participants learn the fundamentals of cooking and a range of cookery and food service skills, as well as providing a space in which they can share the experience of creating and eating meals together. Clients can also take advantage of optional qualifications, which can be used to progress a career in catering.
As a business, we felt secure that we were leading the way in organic retail, but we wanted to set ourselves the challenge of creating a project that would have a real and positive impact on the people in the community we hadn’t been able to reach previously
Commenting on the project, Better Food’s marketing manager, Lucy Gatward (pictured), says: “As a business, we felt secure that we were leading the way in organic retail, but we wanted to set ourselves the challenge of creating a project that would have a real and positive impact on the people in the community we hadn’t been able to reach previously.
“We’d already supported St. Mungo’s through a one-off fundraiser; bringing Square Food Foundation on board as a partner presented us with the perfect opportunity to start something that could help deliver our mission of creating a better, fairer food community.”
Better Food has also just won a Gold South West Fair Trade Business Award, which was presented at a ceremony by TV personality and Fair Trade Foundation Patron Nick Hewer (pictured) last week.
“We are so pleased to have retained this gold award, in the Best Multiple Retailer category,” comments Gatward. “While our main focus is on organic food and farming, there are so many overlaps between what is good for people and what is good for planet; they’re really two sides of the same coin. Fair Trade lifts people out of poverty, often in areas at the sharp end of climate change, so helping them find ways of tackling it sustainably makes sense on every level.”
Lucy continues: “It’s also amazing to be among such a thriving and forward-thinking business community here in the South West. Bristol has been a Fair Trade City since 2005, so we have a long tradition of understanding it’s importance.”
