Support Our Community Cookery School

We're building a community cookery school that supports people living in food poverty across the UK…

COVID-19 has significantly impacted how Bounceback Food CIC, our non-profit community cookery school, operates. Prior to lockdown, our outreach work (cookery workshops, foodbank drive at market events & catering services) predominantly supported people in Greater Manchester, Cheshire & North Wales. As the economic impact of the Coronavirus Pandemic starts to unfold, it is clear that we need to innovate and adapt our model so that we are able to support people living in food poverty nationwide.

Our Coronavirus Response 

In keeping with the proactive way in which we’ve been fighting food poverty since 2014, our immediate Coronavirus response included:

• Pledging 5 million free licenses to our online Cooking & Nutrition Portal.
• Donating all remaining stock to our foodbank drive in the North-West.
• Adapting our catering service to deliver meals door to door.
• Launching online cookery workshops that provide free places for our beneficiaries.

Social Impact To Date

Since 2014 we have taught more than 2,500 people how to cook including stroke survivors, young carers, foodbank beneficiaries and elderly people living in sheltered accommodation. We have also donated over 10,000 items of food to foodbanks as part of our foodbank drive and generated almost 100,000 meals for people in need via our catering provision and workshops. As the furlough scheme comes to an end and claims for Universal Credit soar, it's vital that we scale up our social impact and fight food poverty nationwide!

Our Vision

Our team in central Manchester is now focussed on building a community cookery school that supports people living in food poverty across the UK by:

• Ensuring their nearest foodbank is stocked with good quality items of nutritious food & hygiene products.
• Providing them the opportunity to learn how to cook for free and supporting them with career progression in the food industry.
• Providing free hot nutritious meals at community events.
• Enabling them to learn about cooking, budgeting, nutrition, meal planning and reducing food waste with the provision of free access to our Cooking & Nutrition Portal.

Partner Charities

Our partner charities benefit from:

• Free places on our public cookalongs!

On our Secret Dishes From Around the World cookalongs, participants join us from their kitchens via Zoom to learn how to cook two exciting recipes from a specific country. Thanks to our ‘buy one, give one’ model, partner charities are able to refer individuals they support or groups in sheltered accommodation to us for a free place.

• Free access to our online Cooking & Nutrition Portal!

Our Cooking & Nutrition Portal has hundreds of different recipes, cooking tips, budgeting and nutrition advice plus an interactive meal planner. We provide our partner charities with the ability to distribute free licences to the people they help as part of our sustainable approach to tackling the long-term causes of food poverty.

If you’re interested in becoming one of our partner charities, please get in touch!

Corporate Partners

With your help as a corporate partner, we can scale up our nationwide social impact at a much quicker rate.

By organising one of our fundraising corporate cookalongs, sponsoring our podcast or gifting your staff/suppliers copies of our Secret Dishes From Around the World cookbooks you’ll be actively supporting the development of our community cookery school and joining our fight against food poverty. You can also donate directly to our Community Meal Drive - every £2.50 pledged funds a hot, nutritious meal for a vulnerable person struggling to access food.

If you’re interested in joining our fight against food poverty by becoming one of our corporate partners, please get in touch and we will send you our corporate brochure!

Help Us Grow

There are a number of ways that you can help us to scale up our social impact and fight food poverty nationwide! You can:

• Order our Secret Dishes From Around the World cookbook series! The original Secret Dishes From Around the World (2019) is packed full of vegetarian and vegan recipes and beautifully illustrated by Libby Element.
  

• Order Secret Dishes From Around the World 2 (2020) which contains recipes from 20 countries and original designs by 20 artists based in Greater Manchester, Cheshire & North Wales.

• Pre-order a first edition copy of Secret Dishes From Around the World 3! Our third fundraising cookbook is due to be published in November 2021...

• Become a member of our community cookery school! There are 3 tiers available, all providing you with 12 months access to our online Cooking & Nutrition Portal.
• Take part in one of our online cookalongs and learn how to cook 2 exciting recipes from a secret country. Thanks to our buy one, give one model, your ticket helps us allocate free places to our network of partner charities. You could also purchase one of our gift vouchers as a present for a foodie!

• Fund the provision of hot, nutritious meals via our Community Meal Drive! Support our team in central Manchester as they cook and distribute meals to vulnerable people struggling to access food.
  

• Have a listen to our podcast 'Share Your Secrets' which celebrates the diversity of food, art and community! Episodes include interviews with the artists involved in the production of Secret Dishes From Around the World 2, insights about community and culture from people in the featured countries and exclusive updates from Bounceback’s central team in Manchester. You can listen for free on a variety of platforms including: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, Anchor or Overcast. 

With your support, we will be able to accelerate the development of our community cookery school as we scale up our fight against food poverty across the UK. Thank you!