A Birmingham hospitality group has launched a new social impact initiative focused on tackling food poverty and widening access to culinary education.<\/p>\n
The Blend Culinary Foundation, created by hospitality operator Blend Family, will be based at the Alfred Works Cookery School in Digbeth\u2019s Custard Factory and aims to bring together businesses, volunteers and community organisations through food-focused programmes.<\/p>\n
To mark its launch, the foundation will host an Open Kitchen day on 11 March, inviting the public to tour the cookery school, meet the team and take part in preparing meals for local organisations supporting people experiencing food insecurity across Birmingham.<\/p>\n
Running from midday until 5pm, the event will allow visitors to explore the facility and learn more about the foundation\u2019s activities.<\/p>\n
Between 12pm and 3pm, guests will also be able to help prepare ready meals that will be distributed through community partners across the city.<\/p>\n
The cookery school will also host a series of corporate and community pledge days throughout the year, where participants will work together to prepare meals for donation to local charities. Businesses will be able to participate in corporate impact days that combine team building with community support.<\/p>\n
Alongside this, the foundation plans to run a range of culinary experiences including cooking and cocktail masterclasses, as well as youth and family programmes such as junior and teen chef classes and multi-generational cooking sessions.<\/p>\n
The programme will be led by chef instructor Jo Dingwall, who brings more than 25 years of professional culinary experience.<\/p>\n
Matt Bigland, co-founder of Blend Family, said: \u201cFood has an incredible power to connect people and create opportunity. Through the Blend Culinary Foundation and the cookery school at Alfred Works, we want to create a space where people can learn new skills, support their community and experience the joy of cooking together. This is about using food to make a real difference.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A new initiative aims to tackle food poverty and expand access to culinary education while bringing businesses and communities together <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":266702,"featured_media":2109293,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[127686],"coauthors":[127717],"class_list":["post-2109292","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hospitality","tag-featured-story","tag-greater-birmingham"],"yoast_head":"\n