Rochdale’s Food Project

Posted By: William Hobhouse
Date Posted: 24/09/2009

Nearly one year ago, with the public success of Jamie Oliver’s Ministry of Food in Rotherham, I floated that we might take some of his inspiration and get it to work in Rochdale. Cue my Jamie Oliver inspired appearance in the Rochdale Observer last year with apron and frying pan.

I received a lot of positive feedback from the article and we set up a working party in Rochdale Township to turn ideas into reality. A month later, Township approved a budget of £45,000.

We split the money in two. One half went to 18 primary and secondary schools in the town for after-school cooking clubs. The other half went to skilling up cooks in courses so that these new cooks can ‘Pass It On’.

So, 10 months on, hundreds of children have started on the cooking ladder, and we have adults learning kitchen skills to pass those skills on.

In the last couple of weeks there have been questions as to whether Rochdale Township and the Lib Dems delivered results. Or to put it more politically, whether frying pan and apron were an example of spin without substance. It’s good to let people know that the opposite has been the case. There’s been so little publicity that those residents away from the participating schools and community centres haven’t heard about the excellent quiet work going on to improve healthy eating in the town. This project has demonstrated all substance and no spin.