Hounslow Mayor Opens the Chartwells Creative Kitchen

The £250,000 investment by Chartwells, Compass Group UK & Ireland’s specialist provider of catering to the education sector, is part of the Feeding Futures joint venture with the London Borough of Hounslow.

On Thursday, 1 January, the Mayor of the London Borough of Hounslow, Councillor Nisar Malik opened the exciting new Chartwells Creative Kitchen facility. The event was attended by Head Teachers, Business Managers and schoolchildren from across the borough.

The Hounslow-based kitchen produces meals for the borough’s schools that currently do not have cooking facilities. The addition of the Chartwells Creative Kitchen will provide an educational hub for students and parents; supporting schools in delivering hands-on cookery sessions that go beyond the kitchen with assemblies, workshops and tutorials.

With learning about cooking and nutrition now part of the National Curriculum, the Chartwells Creative Kitchen will offer programmes tailored to schools to get young people’s creative juices flowing and introduce them to the wonderful world of good food and cooking.

The kitchen will also be open to members of the local community. People can learn to cook from scratch or develop their skills to make tasty, nutritious meals at home. Sessions at the Chartwells Creative Kitchen will include “Dough and Bread Making”, “Pizza Making” and a “Five a Day” course, which will teach young people about the nutritional benefits of the foods that they will be cooking with, encouraging them to make healthier lifestyle choices.

In addition to this, the kitchen will serve as a training hub to Chartwells staff, offering sessions for their frontline teams on cookery, presentation and health and safety among other things.

Leanne Turk, Training and Development Chef for Chartwells said; “I will look to bring my wealth of experience from working in fine dining kitchens across Europe, including the Gaillac in France and at Gordon Ramsay Holdings, into the training kitchen. Nothing satisfies me more than seeing young students trying and enjoying new foods, learning new and interesting facts about nutrition and creating new food memories.”

For further information about Chartwells Creative Kitchen, as well as the programmes on offer, please contact Leanne Turk on 07920 417041 or email Leanne.turk@compass-group.co.uk

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