People's History Museum in Manchester partners with Open Kitchen to fight food waste
The People's History Museum has partnered with Open Kitchen to launch a café and bar serving sustainable and ethical produce.
The venue in Spinningfields will open on 19 May with a largely vegetarian and vegan menu centred around food that would have otherwise gone to waste. Open Kitchen also purchases ingredients from local, seasonal, organic and independent sources that are Fairtrade and have short supply chains. All-day menus will be served in addition to table service drinks and small plates in the evenings.
"We are a values-driven organisation and we're very excited for Open Kitchen to be taking its place within the national museum of democracy," said Katy Ashton, director of People's History Museum.
"We share Open Kitchen's passion, belief and dedication for access to good food for all and look forward to their brilliant food and drink offer being part of the museum. Through this innovative partnership we will continue to place communities at the heart of everything we do, advocating environmental responsibility, inclusion and access, and committing to fair pay as Real Living Wage Employers."
Open Kitchen's menu will change seasonally, and the few meat dishes on offer will be reared and sourced locally. The café's venue will also be made from upcycled, recycled and reclaimed materials, while Fairtrade and organic fabric will be used for staff uniforms. All of its takeaway packaging will be 100% compostable.
Corin Bell, founder and director of Open Kitchen, said: "Affordable good food for all has always been something that we're really passionate advocates for. To site our new café within the museum of democracy, equality and rights, especially as the debate about the right to food rages, just feels like a perfect fit."
Bell added: "When you work in a huge environmental problem like food waste, you're always sort of trying to put yourself out of a job by pushing to fix the broken system, hopefully to the point where food waste stops happening in the first place. It felt important for us to start to demonstrate how we can change our food system to design out food waste. We hope that by demonstrating how short supply chains, working directly with producers, buying local and seasonal, etc can reduce food waste, we can inspire people to change their habits around food."
