Before the pandemic, we cooked 400 meals a day, five days a week. This all changed on 22 March 2020. Sunday before the first lockdown, when I, Milda Burn, account manager for guest services and hospitality, told my 30-strong team not to turn up for the following weeks – for some time to come. In fact, they were off till June. At first, only myself and our Head Chef Simon Merrick returned.
Restaurant manager Gitana Dzidziguri and Commis Chef Mario Stefanov re-joined them in August and formed a core team.
Once we reopened in August, we worked through the next two lockdowns, providing food and drink for our print, mail and business admin teams in the office.
Our client wanted to donate stock, but this wasn’t easy, after a few discussions we thought about which charitable organisations we could help and partnered with The Felix Project.
According to The Felix Project, a food redistribution charity, the food industry produces nearly two million tonnes of edible surplus a year. Yet in London, one-and-a-half-million adults struggle to afford to eat every day, and 400,000 children are at risk of missing their next meals.
The charity collects fresh foods from more than 500 farms, delis, wholesalers, restaurants and supermarkets. It delivers these to nearly 1,000 schools and charities in London.
Since June, we have donated 100 meals a day, Monday to Friday. These go to the NHS, social care homes, schools and refugees. Mario bakes bread, makes sandwiches, prepares meals and packs each bag. He said: “Making these meals gives me great satisfaction and makes me feel grateful that I am able to give back to those who are less fortunate than us.”
The Felix Project’s volunteers collect the meals. When they couldn’t, if they had to self-isolate, Simon and Gitana would deliver instead.
