The Christmas countdown is well and truly underway! Here at Open Kitchen MCR HQ, we have dived straight into the festive season! We have been catering for some very special events…..but more on that at the end of the month!
The results are in and we can announce we intercepted 3.9 tonnes of beautiful food items and ingredients, plus 314kgs of household goods in November! We catered for a number of wonderful events including serving up delicious canapés for local furniture business Ferrious.
We have continued to redistribute to a number of food banks and also made a very tasty chicken hot pot, pesto pasta and chocolate and apricot bread and butter pudding for Coffee4Craig. They work tirelessly to make sure people experiencing homelessness have access to hot, nutritious food in this cold weather.
We made two new amazing friends last month, SPL Foods LTD and Manchester Central who are now working with us to make sure any surplus food goes to good use. We look forward to working with them more in the new year!
On the 30th November, our Director Corin Bell took part in a discussion panel, “Why Christmas shouldn’t cost the earth” in partnership with Bruntwood and Hatch. In great company on the panel with Seb Dot, lead Campaign for Manchester Friends of the Earth’s Waste and plastics campaign, and Shelley Brown, founder of packaging free store The Good Life in Heaton Mersey. The lively discussion covered the tricky topic of discussing reducing gift or cards swapping with family members, reducing food waste at Christmas, and even swayed into global consumer trends.
We also welcomed a new member to our team! Our lovely new Kitchen Porter Liam last month and we are absolutely loving his passion to reduce food waste.
After a fabulous year of making new partnerships with amazing local businesses, we are now able to offer catering at a lower price and for a smaller number of people. You can check out our wonderful catering menu here: www.openkitchenmcr.co.uk/catering-service. We would like to say a huge thank you to all our customers and supporters for making our first year so amazing. Here is too many more!
Until next month, enjoy the festivities!