A new food delivery service in York has created a kitchen garden to help supply four restaurants.
The school kitchen, which began operations last month using the kitchen at Kerr Junior School, has created a garden on the grounds of Eicom School.
The produce will be used in the School Kitchen's four restaurants, which currently offer a menu of Spanish, Mexican, Thai and Sri Lankan cuisine.
The produce will also be used by students in the school's cooking classes, and any surplus will be donated to parents in need.
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The garden is also incorporated into cooking demonstrations to allow students to choose their own ingredients in cooking lessons, with the aim of showing where food comes from.
Vegetables grown include broccoli, onions, potatoes, chili peppers, basil, zucchini, spinach, and lettuce.
School Kitchen chair Nial Moran is also the main gardener on the site, with landscape architect Tom Brown joining him in setting up the growing space.
The site was prepared for planting by cutting away the existing lawn, aerating the soil, and adding compost and lime to increase the pH.
The first crops, including shallots and three varieties of potatoes, have already been planted and the team has installed a large polytunnel.
As part of its sustainability ethos, School Kitchen has installed solar panels on schools to generate electricity and uses bicycles and electric mopeds for all deliveries.
School Kitchen also ships a compostable bag with each order, which customers can fill with biodegradable packaging for delivery drivers to collect on their next takeout order. . The collected bags are composted as organic matter for home gardens.
School Kitchen Managing Director David Nicholson said: “We came up with the idea of setting up a kitchen garden during a tasting session at Pirivena, a Sri Lankan restaurant, in February. Our menu includes seasonal vegetable kali, so we wanted to make sure we had fresh, seasonal vegetables. We were discussing how to obtain one, and Neil (Meyer, Operations Manager) suggested we set up a kitchen garden on land next to the kitchen that the school was not using.
“It was clearly a great idea. Not only would we be able to get the freshest possible ingredients to use in our cooking, but we could also tie in nicely with our cooking lessons and teach school children about growing food.” They Running again for.
“We found out that Niall (Moran, chef at Komi) was an avid gardener and was keen to develop his gardening skills, so we asked Vicki (Kerr, principal). She liked the idea. So I got Tom (Brown, landscape architect) involved and worked to make it happen.”
The school kitchen is also looking for trainees. All staff, from chefs to delivery drivers, are paid at least the current living wage of £12.
For more information, please visit www.schoolkitchen.com.
