When its clients rapidly shifted to working from home with the growing impact of the coronavirus, the company gave its surplus food to charities Foodcycle and OLIO and closed its kitchen on March 23rd.
But on April 2nd it re-opened with a small group of volunteers to set up the Fooditude COVID-19 Emergency Response Kitchen.
The next day the team, working with Bermondsey Employment Skills and Training (BEST) cooked and delivered the first 400 meals. This week output is being doubled, with capacity to expand this up to 2,000 meals a day if needed.
Managing director Dean Kennett said: “Having access to a fully equipped production kitchen with the ability to mass produce meals meant the team at Fooditude really wanted to do something to contribute in this time of crisis.
“Shutting our doors was heart-breaking let alone eerie. It felt like all the hard work everyone has put in to get our business where it is today was being thrown away. I knew I had to do something quickly to change that mindset and pouring our efforts into charity work seemed like the best way to do it.”
Fooditude is working with Sam Vacciana from BEST to distribute the food, the two organisations having worked together for some time, with Fooditude offering traineeships for BEST’s employment skills students.
Vacciana said: “We were delighted when Fooditude contacted us about helping connect them to community partners to donate some freshly cooked meals.
“We were able to distribute about 300 packed meals last Friday lunchtime to sheltered housing units and charities in Southwark. The feedback has been heart-warming and really helped with not just their residents’ morale, but the volunteers’ too.
“We hope that we will be able to continue to provide this bit of love and care by getting more meals out to those who most need them during these unsettling and often lonely times.”
Kennett added that Fooditude wanted to continue to grow the emergency response and was currently fundraising to finance the work.
Anyone wishing to help can donate to the Fooditude COVID-19 Emergency Kitchen by visiting its Go Fund Me page: https://www.gofundme.com/f/fooditude-covid19-emergency-response
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