Craft Guild seeks chefs to support food education programmes

CGC’s ‘food appreciation’ workshops aim to bring together chefs, children and parents across the country for hands-on cooking sessions.

After a successful pilot workshop last month, CGC said it is now preparing for its second event, due to be held on 12 July. With sponsors and more chefs on board, the Guild hopes to be able to make the workshops a quarterly event in school kitchens, based around seasonal produce.

Food = fun + fulfilling​

“We want to teach children about cooking and nutrition, but also to get across that working with food is fulfilling and fun. We believe that will help bring people into the industry,” explained Mark Rigby from Premier Foods, who is on the Craft Guild of Chefs sub-committee for education.

“It’s about breaking down some of the mystique behind what a chef does and how. Chefs are normal human beings and we’re trying to get that message across to children, who may later be interested in cookery. It helps us with brining passionate people into education and into the sector later on,” he told BigHospitality.

Get involved​

The education workshops will be run by members of CGC. The family-oriented events will take a “back to basics” approach to ingredients, cooking equipment and nutrition.

"As an industry we spend a great deal of time developing 'healthy' foods and menus for schools and support the education of children in the school. However we recognise that there is very little support once the child leaves the school and in many cases, that education stops when the child gets home," said Martin Bates, CEO of The Craft Guild of Chefs.

CGC is currently developing four ‘seasonal packs’ that it would provide to chefs to roll out in the 2012 series of events.

Chefs interested in taking part – who must be members of the Craft Guild of Chefs – can contact enquiries‘at’craftguildofchefs.org for more information.

CGC is also calling for sponsors for the events, particularly those that can provide ingredients.