We have continued to develop and support the growing of food by local organisations. The growing at Marple supported by the Community Payback team is now fully sustainable and producing ready meals on a small scale for food poverty projects. Therefore, we have moved on to develop the work further at Forever Fields.  However, the plan to grow local food and use it to cook ready meals for food poverty projects has been modified because of an unexpected demand for the produce from an unexpected source.

As the food has grown throughout the summer we have been working more with the guys working on the gardens from the Community Payback schemes, many of whom are in food poverty themselves. We have encouraged them to take produce home at the end of the day’s activity and to prepare their own nutritious ready meals for themselves at home. We have regular queues outside the poly tunnel and container for free tomatoes and mushrooms.

This has also been enhanced by showing the guys how to prepare and cook the food at their own homes. We have even had one of the CP placements boasting about making a “new”recipe he invented at home using the garden produce.  

We have been really pleased that the Placements clearly understood and learned about good food during their time on cp with us and how they can make their own much better (and cheaper) food than the “shit” they normally eat.

So we now have a new plan in place and that is to use good local grown food to create a menu that will appeal to lots of people. Vegan Fried Chicken and Chips, Vegan Jerk Fried Chicken etc. This will be seasoned and battered strips of oyster mushroom fried in an air fryer - 'strips, chips and peas' as one of the group called it.

Watch this space!