HELLO, AND WELCOME TO 4LUNCH! We believe in the joy and excitement cooking, sharing and eating brings to all. Food is a universal experience, and has the power to make a real difference in people’s lives, be it socially, in terms of skills and employment, or improving health and wellbeing. It is our mission here at 4Lunch to create these positive relationships with food through holding innovative workshops and programmes. Our workshops are engaging, experimental and educational. Our practitioners are full of energy and enthusiasm about food, and we simply love what we do! If you’d like to be part of our mission to change lives through food, please read on and get in touch - we’d love to hear from you.
FOOD FOR THOUGHT: 4Lunch’s Food For Thought programme is all about enabling our participants to lead happier and healthier lifestyles by improving skills, knowledge and relationships around how to prepare, cook and eat good food, for themselves and their friends and family. Food is more than just fuel - it is central to our health and wellbeing. Preparing food can be a deeply therapeutic practice, and eating together promotes social bonds. Sadly, cooking and sharing food with one another is overlooked in today’s society. But here at 4Lunch, we bring the focus back to food and the joy it can bring to all.
The workshops are suitable for all ages and abilities, and very hands-on! This practical and intuitive way to learn gives everyone the opportunity to connect with food, and create something from scratch. We also hold cooking demonstrations for larger groups.
FOOD FOR THOUGHT WORKSHOP UNITS INCLUDE: • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
Supermarket Shopping Cooking With Chicken Basic Nutrition Specialised Nutrition Store Cupboard Ingredients Reducing Food Waste Food and Mood Cooking With Children Quick Meals Budget Meals Eating Seasonably Entertaining Breakfast Lunch Dinner Fruit and Veg Meat and Fish Puddings Preserving International Cuisines (including Pasta Making, Thai Cooking) Vegetarian and Vegan Cooking
HOW OUR LEARNERS DESCRIBE FOOD FOR THOUGHT WORKSHOPS: • • • • • • •
Happy Confident Proud Learning Experience Challenging Wonderful Tasty
• • • • • • •
Enlightening Educational Enjoyable Useful Interesting Progressive Exciting
TESTIMONIALS NORTHERN MOOR GARDENING SOCIETY Preserving Workshop
LISA “I was looking to gain skills, experience and confidence from attending the 4Lunch workshops. The teaching, the friendships and the socialising over the summer has made me feel more confident hosting dinners for friends at my house.”
10 WEEK FOOD FOR THOUGHT COURSE, FOR YOUNG PEOPLE WITH ADDITIONAL NEEDS. The programme covered nutrition, food and mood, healthy breakfast, lunches and dinners. A recipe book was developed, and participants gained an ASDAN qualification, and food hygiene and health and safety accreditation.
“4Lunch provided a wonderful preserving workshop for 10 women from Northern Moor Allotment. Amy had the challenge of helping us turn our allotment produce into a range of preserves, chutneys and pickles. The standard of both teaching and delivery were excellent, and the attendees all commented on how the course far exceeded their expectations. The course was engaging for both total novices and those who had done some preserving before; Amy provided interesting new recipes and takes on preserves that gave us all ‘food for thought’ - quite literally! We would highly recommend 4Lunch to anyone looking to host a community based cookery project. A friendly, professional and value for money service. Everyone had such a good time, and everyone was so enthused afterwards.”
MARY “I used to eat a lot of junk food, and I was feeling the effects on my mood. After cooking with 4Lunch, I have lost weight and made new friends. My son can’t believe it!”
“I feel happy, confident and proud”
YOUTH ORGANISATION “Accommodating and supporting our wide, diverse range of young participants, Amy at 4Lunch is able to pace the sessions according to each learner’s individual abilities” - Aqeel Burton, Youth Officer, Trinity House
UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER STUDENT UNION Healthy Breakfast, Lunch And Snacks Workshop For New University Students. “4Lunch hugely enhanced the experience of our student residential through bringing an interesting, engaging and alternative activity. 4Lunch were extremely punctual, kind, and engaging. We needed an engaging activity and 4Lunch delivered! Thank you so much for being part of our residential for Living at Home students, a sector of the student population who are often disregarded and disengaged.”
DAWN “Excellent recipes and lovely, knowledgeable instructors”
READY SET SELL: 4Lunch’s Ready Set Sell programme is all about empowering our participants to gain the skills and confidence they need to find employment in the catering, retail or hospitality industries, or set up their own food-based enterprises. The programme is challenging, rewarding and life-changing. Many of our previous participants are now in employment, despite a tough past. 4Lunch stands by and supports every one of our participants, and truly believes in each of them, even if they do not believe in themselves. Note from Amy, founder and director of 4Lunch: “This programme is very close to my heart - it was the lack of real employment and training opportunities for disadvantaged young people which caused me to start 4Lunch back in August 2013. It did not make sense to me that there was high unemployment at that time, yet a thriving food and drink sector in Manchester. So I started my own street food market stall and held cooking and employability workshops at local youth centres. I invited my participants to work on the stall and design their own menus, overcoming the ‘experience trap’ which many of them faced - not being able to find work due to lack of experience, but not being able to find experience due to lack of work! Now 4Lunch also runs catering services, and previous participants even provide cakes to us! The Ready Set Sell programme is open to all ages, and we believe in the potential of each person that works with us.”
READY SET SELL WORKSHOP UNITS INCLUDE: • • • • • • • • • •
Employability Skills Customer Service Communication Skills Designing and Costing a Menu Business Finance Market Trading Marketing and Promotion CV and Interview Support Work Experience Days at the 4Lunch Market Stall and Catering Service Professional Reference
Additional Activities and Accreditations Offered: • • • • • • •
Food Hygiene Certificate Health and Safety Certificate ASDAN Accredited Courses Food Business Start-Up Coaching Designing a Recipe Book Level 2 Certificate in Retail, Customer Service or Catering and Hospitality Wellbeing Support Package and Mentoring
Back on Track work with people in Greater Manchester who are going through a process of recovery. Our learners include people with experience of substance abuse, homelessness, offending and long-term mental health problems, and many have to overcome a range of barriers before they are ready for work.
HOUSING ASSOCIATION Combined Ready Set Sell and Food For Thought Programme “4Lunch is a brilliant organisation to work with. Sessions are lively, informative, and there is always something new – and healthy!
We have worked collaboratively with 4Lunch for the past two years, which has led to the creation of genuine work opportunities. For our learners, it has been an invaluable experience and a brilliant first step to building their confidence and re-entering the labour market. 4Lunch provided the positive, encouraging and friendly support they needed to help their confidence grow in a professional catering environment. Samantha Bridge- Tonner Senior Employability Coordinator “4Lunch have inspired learners at Back on Track to think innovatively about enterprise” - Rachel Gilkes, Tutor at Back on Track
4Lunch provided a much needed addition to our summer programme, which met the aims of supporting tenant health and wellbeing, and improving employability skills. All of the learners on the programmes expressed high levels of satisfaction. By supplementing our core programme with 4Lunch activities, we were able to maintain a strong reputation for community focus, individualised support, health and fun.
Amy has been highly proactive in the support of learners, including market stall work experience, out of training contact, and developing further learning and trading opportunities. They work behind the scenes to make learners and partners experience as positive as possible, and it really pays off. It is refreshing to see such talent and dedication.” Diane Rogue - Community Development Officer
4LUNCH IN ACTION 4Lunch is proud to be a social enterprise - business where society profits. We balance our commercial and social aims to ultimately further our social mission to change lives through food.
to the public, as well as completing their Food Hygiene Certificate. For the group, the market was their first experience of work in a number of years. Everyone finished the day elated and proud of what they achieved.
Here is an example of how it works in To develop their confidence even further, practice: the group were challenged to design, In Summer 2015, Southway Housing prepare and cost their own market commissioned 4Lunch to run a Food menu. One participant even joined Amy For Thought and a Ready Set Sell to pitch her cakes to the Wates Group, programme simultaneously, working bringing along delicious samples which the office loved! They ordered a batch of with their residents over 6 weeks. breakfast muffins that same day. At the same time, global consultancy firm EY (formerly Ernst & Young), At the market, the group worked construction firm Wates (who also build extremely hard, and managed to Southway properties), and the Women’s generate a healthy profit from their Supporting Social Entrepreneurs enterprising efforts. The group were also network (WSSE) asked 4Lunch to cater involved with catering for the end of Summer BBQ at Southway’s Buckthorn for various events. House, serving the local community 4Lunch was also booked in to trade at fresh grilled lamb burgers, and lemon Levenshulme Market and Stockport’s and herb chicken. Foodie Friday around this same time, serving delicious street food to the At 4Lunch, we are innovative and enterprising in our approach to public. changing lives through food. We want As part of their initial training, Ready Set to work with people who understand Sell participants helped to construct the the way we work, and are open to lunch boxes and prepare and serve food creative ideas.
“4Lunch helped me more than the Work Programme. My manager at Shell was impressed by my reference. I now have more experience and am able to communicate with people” – Ahmed
“Littlewoods liked that I was doing something productive over summer, instead of doing nothing. I talked a lot about Ready Set Sell in the interview. The course was great” – Abdi
“I joined the Ready Set Sell programme to get out of the house and to give me something to do. It was just a hobby making cakes. Now I see it being something I could do long term, and I feel there is more to learn. Though it is nice to be someone’s mum, it is good to have my own identity. I was so nervous selling my cakes for the first time at the market. By the end of the day I felt like a different person, like I had achieved something major. I have learned that I am more capable than I think.” - Car
“I had no work experience before I came to 4Lunch. I really enjoyed the cooking experience and communicating with others to improve my English. I have never worked on a market stall before, and now know more about customer service and working under pressure. I worked with Amy on one of 4Lunch’s busiest market day, and found it very exciting” - Aster
“Amy’s positivity and encouragement has given me the confidence to know that I can achieve whatever I’m willing to put the work into. In all honesty, I was feeling depressed before the course, now I feel like I have a purpose. Though the course was sometimes stressful and challenging, I have gained coping strategies to deal with the anxiety and to be more organised. I was smiling for days after Stockport Market and the community BBQ. I must have called everyone on my phone that evening. I liked being busy, feeling valued, and the feeling of working again.” - Becky
“When I came to 4Lunch, all I wanted was just to be in full time work, whatever the job. From the course, I became much more disciplined and organised, something Amy drilled into me from the beginning. Now I can see myself as a potential head chef or manager. The food hygiene certificate and work experience was helpful, but it was the reference and someone vouching for me which secured me a full time position in a commercial kitchen. Professionally, I have a lot more capability to make food. I am also able to handle situations better, whereas I might have kicked off before. There is a lot more to achieve, but I feel like I can overcome these challenges.” - Jason
“Excellent course. I think it is easier to get another job after 4Lunch. I can now speak confidently with customers . I had no experience, now I work full time in a care home kitchen, and have something to talk about in an interview” – Nuhamin
CONTACT DETAILS 07983430747 amy@4lunch.co.uk www.4lunch.co.uk
What value 4Lunch brings to clients passionate, caring practitioners, those that go above and beyond service for beneficiaries Case studies of work with each client group: corporations, housing, schools, universities, charities, community groups Social value, conduct workshops with organisations in need, but cannot afford with our profits.