Handy guide to... running a community chef project - Kent Trust Web

In 2008 Kent County Council (KCC) launched two community chef pilots in Kent; one
covering Dartford and Gravesham and the other covering the Isle of Sheppey. KCC
provided funding for each chef for a year and evaluated the impact they had on their
local communities.
This guide is aimed at commissioners interested in running a similar project and
provides advice and learning from KCC’s experience and the formal evaluation of the
community chef pilots.
What is a community chef project?
A community chef is someone that provides free or very low cost cooking courses for
members of a community to provide the community with the skills and knowledge to
prepare tasty, quick, low cost and healthy meals at home.
A community chef also works with partners to identify and co-ordinate existing cookery
initiatives to ensure that key community organisations work in partnership to pool
resources and fill gaps in provision to meet the health needs of the community.
Why are community chef projects useful?
The Department of Health acknowledges that the perception that good food is more
expensive and time consuming to cook is a barrier to a healthy lifestyle. A practical way
to overcome barriers to healthy eating is to actively get parents and children cooking
together.
Community cookery clubs are not a new idea and have been used as a health
promotion tool for many years to teach about healthy eating and develop basic cookery
skills. A Needs Assessment (unpublished) undertaken on the Isle of Sheppey by Swale
PCT (now Eastern and Coastal Kent PCT) in 2005 found that residents highlighted
cookery classes as the top activity they would like to engage in to improve their health.
This supported the 2001 Survey of Mothers carried out by Sheerness Children and
Family Centre that found mothers believed they could adopt a healthier lifestyle by
being provided with quick and easy meal ideas.
Community chefs have been hugely successful in East Sussex and the Isle of Wight in
equipping communities with cookery skills and healthy eating knowledge.

Setting up a community chef project
Preparation
Before setting up a community chef project you need to consider the following:
Location
KCC found that working at a local level is key to a successful community chef project.
Community chefs need to build up close working relationships with local partner
organisations to maximise opportunities to use available resources such as kitchens
and equipment for minimal or no cost. Covering too large a geographical area means
that the chef can not build the close personal relationships with members of
communities who may benefit most from this type of project. Becoming established and
building up trust in a local community is imperative. Additionally a chef covering too
large a geographical area will spend more time and expense in travel.
Funding
Consideration needs to be given to how the chef will be funded. Funding needs to
cover:
Recruitment and advertising for the chef
Chefs salary, on costs and travel expenses
Office costs
Room hire, equipment, printed recipes and ingredients for cooking courses
Publicity
Some costs could be recouped such as charging a small fee for courses to cover
ingredients or hiring the chef out at events to generate additional income. Sponsorship
from local businesses, organisations and supermarkets may also be available. Funding
may also be available from local partners.
Partners
To firmly embed the community chef in the local area KCC worked closely with partners
from the start to encourage a sense of ownership of the project by the community. A
community Food Partnership was established to plan, recruit and manage the work of
the chef and included professionals from local community organisations such as PCTs,
Healthy Living Centres, Children’s Centres, community centres, voluntary organisations,
churches, GP surgeries, schools, elderly, homeless and housing associations. It was
decided that the chefs should be hosted by the Healthy Living Centres who were well
established in the community and could offer management and office space for the
chefs. The advantage of involving local partners is that resources are more forthcoming
and the chef will quickly became an accepted and established community member. By
being involved partners are aware of the value of the chef, can promote the services
offered and quickly establish an induction programme and work plan.

Venues and equipment
The chef will need to have access to community venues providing cooking facilities to
run the cooking courses. These will need to be identified by partners before the chef is
in post and hire rates (if applicable) negotiated, though hopefully partners will be able to
provide facilities for nothing or a nominal cost. Venues with cooking facilities may
include early years’ settings, Children’s Centres, schools, youth clubs, churches,
community centres, Healthy Living Centres, and homeless shelters.
If local venues providing cooking facilities and equipment are limited the chef may need
to be provided with portable cookers and equipment which will add to the cost of the
project. Once in post the chef may also have some ideas about what equipment may
need to be purchased so some budget may need to be held back.
Recruitment
It is worth involving the Food Partnership in the recruitment of the community chef to
encourage the members to engage with the project. In Kent partnerships were tasked
with creating the job description and advertising, interviewing and selecting the two
chefs.
As a guide the chefs were required to have:
at least five years experience of working in a catering environment
experience of working with a cross-section of organisations and communities,
including disadvantaged groups
good working knowledge of principles of healthy eating and the national healthy
eating agenda
basic catering qualification and Basic Food Hygiene Certificate
excellent communication and interpersonal skills.
The first stage of the recruitment involved shortlisted candidates conducting an
interactive cooking demonstration with an audience including future users i.e. elderly,
children, people with special needs and professionals such as Environmental Health to
assess working practices. Successful candidates were then invited to interview
conducted by a small panel of key partners who then based their decision on the
cooking demonstration, audience feedback and interview.
Who should cooking courses be aimed at?
Almost any community group can benefit from a cooking course. The two chefs in Kent
ran courses with a variety of groups such as families, school children of all ages,
adolescents, teenage parents, dads, homeless groups, pensioners, and British Minority
Ethnic groups. Courses were adapted to suit the group so for instance the chef ran a
beer and curry course for dads while concentrated on healthy weaning foods for parents
of babies. Each course ran weekly for 6-8 weeks and lasted a couple of hours.

Sometimes participants would sit down and eat their meal once cooked and sometimes
meals would be taken home to be enjoyed that evening by the whole family.
Advertising
Advertising the cooking courses can be greatly enhanced by setting up a Food
Partnership and including all key local partners in the planning, recruitment and
development of the pilot. Partners are likely to include professionals from the local
health, education and community sectors which enables direct links with parents-to-be,
families, adolescents in housing projects, the elderly, people with special needs etc.
The personality of the chef is also crucial so it is important to recruit a chef with the
personality and ability to engage and enthuse people of all ages and backgrounds.
The best way for the community to learn about the chef is to see the chef in action.
Chefs should attend community events such as festivals and run demonstrations to
further create awareness.
Sustainability
Because a project like this does have cost implications it is important to consider future
sustainability. The Food Partnership should support the chef in finding opportunities to
generate income, future funding and sponsorship where possible. As well as running
cooking courses the chef should look to train community volunteers to support the work
of the chef and to set up cooking clubs for those who have participated in a cooking
course.
How to set up and run a community chef project - checklist
1. Select the location for the project
2. Identify funding for the project
3. Set up a Food Partnership
4. Identify venues and equipment
5. Recruit a chef
6. Plan and run cooking courses
7. Consider sustainability
Resources
The community chefs worked with KCC to create 52 seasonable simple recipe cards
based around common fruits and vegetables. These are available to download for free
LINK.
What the research says
The pilot was a success and the two chefs reached over 3000 people during the one
year pilot phase.

After attending cooking courses there were improvements in healthy eating knowledge
and behaviour with more people:
reading food labels
eating a healthy diet
cooking and using recipes
For more information please see the Community Chef Evaluation Report.
What we learnt
Food Partnerships were important in driving the project forward but natural wastage
meant the partnerships did reduce leaving a burden on existing members. New
members need to be recruited to ensure the partnerships maintain momentum.
Labelling the cookery courses as healthy eating could be off-putting to some
participants.
The personality of the two chefs was the most important factor in the success of the
cooking courses.
Getting families to cook together was a particularly effective way to get healthy
eating messages across.
Participants were disappointed when the course was over and wanted an
opportunity to continue attending longer term. The chefs felt a solution would be to
offer follow-up courses, or create a permanent cooking base in the communities (i.e.
a community food hub) which would provide a central focus for food and cooking in
the communities where people could interact with chefs and get involved in cooking
as and when they wanted.
Top tips
Allow plenty of time to plan a community chef project and set up a Food Partnership.
Funding needs to last longer than a year to enable chefs to have the capacity to set
up long term cookery clubs and train volunteers.
Be as clear as possible with partners at the outset about expectations and what
involvement in partnerships will entail.