Field to Fork
A unique work experience programme brought to you by Turl Street Kitchen, Oxford Hub and Cultivate, with support from Oxfordshire County Council.
Three young chefs-in-the-making aged between 16 and 18 are spending the month of August getting to grips with every link of the food chain.
We’re putting three teens through a full immersion in sustainable food. They’re spending a week discovering where food comes from in Cultivate’s market garden, a week learning the ropes of catering and service in the Turl Street Kitchen, and a week exploring how Oxford’s grassroots food projects are bringing communities together and revitalising the city. In the fourth and final week our three young aspiring chefs will source and harvest local ingredients and design a seasonal menu which they’ll cook and serve up at the programme’s closing event, the Field to Fork Feast.
In conjunction with local vocational tutors and social workers we’ve recruited three Field to Fork participants who we hope will benefit enormously from this opportunity. We’ve targeted young people who have ended up out of mainstream education but who have recently shown great promise by securing places in Oxford and Cherwell Valley College’s Catering and Hospitality Department.
We’ve designed Field to Fork to bring about two kinds of change:
- Personal Change: Field to Fork is about empowering young people to take their futures into their own hands. The programme will equip them with new skills, boost their confidence and increase their employability so they go on to take the catering industry by storm.
- Social Change: Field to Fork is training up a new generation of switched on chefs tuned in to how individuals, communities and businesses can come together to build a thriving food future for us all.
This is the first ever Field to Fork Programme, but we hope to develop it in future years.
For more information, get in touch with our Sustainability Officer Doireann on doireann@turlstreetkitchen.co.uk or 07507566137.
