Formerly known as Real Junk Food, Open Kitchen Manchester - Manchester's only waste food catering social enterprise, who are supporting vulnerable people in the region with good home-cooked nutritious meals - are looking for volunteers (Monday to Friday) to help feed the ever-increasing number of street homeless, the at risk elderly, and families in poverty, during the COVID-19 crisis.
Working in partnership with Manchester City Council to distribute nutritious meals to those in need, the not-for-profit enterprise has received amazing support from many Manchester restaurants, like Cafe Football,Zoukand Sale's Fat Loaf, who have offered to buy supplies despite the fact that their own restaurant has closed. Catering equipment companies JLA, ao.com, FSW, and Frostbite Refrigerationhave all loaned free fridges, freezers and fridge trailers to help their emergency food response team.
Amongst many individual pledges, Onward Homes have donated £25,000, Tetley Tea have donated 18,000 tea bags, social media company Social Chain, have offered their entire office for use for the duration of the crisis, and Isuzuhave provided a showroom vehicle to move extra food around.
Fellow local food poverty project The Bread & Butter Thing have shared supplies and Creamerieschef Mary-Ellen McTague has rallied the entirety of Manchester’s hospitality sector to get food that would have otherwise gone to waste.
Lineage Logistics have even donated 1.1 million frozen airplane ready meals, which were set to be destroyed, however with demand increasing every single day, the Manchester enterprise is still in need of more food donations, volunteer chefs and drivers [help here].
First and foremost, though, they need financial support to deliver this service, so, if you can offer a donation, every single penny of funds raised will go to buy supplies needed to deliver the food safely (cleaning supplies, take-away containers, etc.), and to support prep and delivery costs [donate here].
