Cooking up Change for Birmingham

We're Crowdfunding to ensure the Wellbeing of our communities during this cost of living crisis.

This new initiative allows us to use our experience as a social enterprise event caterer to share our delicious and nutritious recipes with everyone! Please support our campaign by either donating or choosing the ready meals and rewards.

All of the profit raised from selling our NEW ready meals goes directly into feeding people in need in Birmingham and helping them to better manage their finances at a time when the cost of feeding families has sky rocketed.

(Our CEO Birgit Kehrer on the left)

Who we are

We are a social enterprise catering organisation in Birmingham, founded in 2010 specifically to both support people in need with access to healthy food and the means to produce it (through our popular accessible healthy eating cookery sessions), and to support those furthest from the labour market back to work.

Our story

Since March 2020, ChangeKitchen CIC has expanded its social impact efforts in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. During this challenging time, our team began providing FREE nutritious, culturally sensitive meals to those in need, all prepared from scratch using surplus food. Our CEO, Birgit Kehrer, was tasked with ensuring that particularly vulnerable individuals had access to hot meals and food parcels during lockdown. With the help of hundreds of volunteers from diverse backgrounds, the team distributed thousands of meals every week throughout the first lockdown.

When funding ceased in July 2020, Birgit and the team recognised that many of the people we had been supporting still needed assistance. Committed to continuing this vital work, we have maintained our FREE meal distribution efforts and continue to do so to this day.

To date, we have delivered 90,000 meals and 9,000 customised food parcels, often tailored to meet cultural and dietary needs, all lovingly assembled by our dedicated team.

Introducing Our New Ready Meal Range: Nourishing Your Body and Community

At Changkitchen CIC, we’ve always been passionate about creating delicious, nutritious meals inspired by diverse cuisines from around the world. For years, our regular event catering recipes have delighted our customers, and now we wish to develop a range of 'ready meals' based on these recipes which we can sell to help support our work within vulnerable communities.

This new range of ready meals will not only satisfy your hunger but also support our mission to feed those in need. With every meal you purchase, all profit from this will go directly towards providing FREE meals to individuals and families facing food insecurity and to deliver healthy eating training for disadvantaged communities. 

Each meal is carefully prepared using the same high-quality ingredients and culinary expertise that our catering clients have come to love. Whether you’re craving something comforting or adventurous, our ready meals offer a convenient way to enjoy delicious and nutritious food while also making a positive impact in your community.

We’ve designed a special ‘bellyband’ for our take-out containers, so when you pick up one of our meals, you’ll see a reminder of how your purchase is helping to support our ‘feeding people in need’ initiative.

By choosing our ready meals, you’re not just treating yourself to a delicious dish—you’re helping to build a more compassionate and supportive community.

The Thermal Cooking Bag

This is one of our fantastic rewards, courtesy of the amazing team at Sew Fab. The Sew Fab Thermal Cooking Bag is a product that helps in the fight against fuel poverty and climate change. You can either buy one for yourself through our crowdfunding campaign and give one to a family in need. Or if you would like to done both, we can organise that for you too! It is perfect for long car journeys, days out, picnics, camping trips, catering events. Start cooking Soups, Casseroles, Chillis, Biryanis and other slow cooked dishes. Ten minutes cooking and have the Sew Fab Bag do the rest. Watch the video below:

Testimonials

Charlotte (ChangeKitchen's new Commis Chef after her apprenticeship with ChangeKitchen):

"I don't like to think about where I would be without my colleagues at ChangeKitchen. Before I came here for a healthy eating training session, which then led amazingly to an apprenticeship, my life had been traumatic and really difficult. Now I look to the future and I have so many dreams for myself" 

(With her hard work and the support of the ChangeKitchen CIC team, Charlotte has just graduated from UCB with a Distinction in all three of her assignments, something that has not happened for the last 10 years on that course). 

Margaret (Ladywood Community Centre):

"Your meals are all very gratefully received and go down a storm every week. It is great to have enough so that everyone will be able to have a good nutritious meal. … We know lots of our people don't have good cooking facilities so the meals are really a great service for them . We always explain where they come from (you and team), the care and attention  you put into the food. The fact that they are vegetarian makes the meals appropriate and sensitive to the diverse communities (we serve). The biggest compliment I can give is people ask for the meals and are disappointed if they miss them so having more will be great.  There is such a need in the area and we are seeing  new people every day as things become more and more difficult. The stories are chilling and the unfairness of resources is so evident .   … Birgit I understand and you and your team have been so supportive to us. … Again thank you to you and all the team,  you guys are  amazing. xx"

Please help us to launch an exciting new project

There is a clear and ongoing need for support and food in our communities, and valuable opportunities are needed for those looking to reenter the workforce. Our work on this is currently dependent on funding, and so we are proposing a new model: Offering a range of our popular and delicious Take Away Meals range to those who can afford it, with all profits going to communities in need.

This will allow us to continue and increase our efforts substantially, allowing us to provide more food and more opportunity to those in need, including Healthy Eating Training. These sessions and opportunities not only provide essential skills and experience but also empower individuals by giving them a sense of purpose and belonging.