Liverpool legend Robbie Fowler has thrown his support behind a 20th century-inspired community kitchen initiative a Liverpool Hope University academic believes has the potential to change the way we tackle food poverty in this country.
The former Premier League star has donated £18,000 to help fund a communal dining pilot, which Hope’s Professor Bryce Evans says could support or even replace food banks as a means of combating the cost of living crisis.
The Scouse Kitchen trial is the brainchild of Ian Byrne MP for Liverpool West Derby and influenced by the work of Professor Evans who is a social history expert specialising in modern world history.
He is the author of Feeding the People in Wartime Britain, which examines the impact of the community kitchens that operated nationwide between 1917 and the 1960s. He believes that the reintroduction of such schemes could provide a healthier, more sustainable and less demeaning way of tackling food poverty than food banks.
“Community kitchens were successful during wartime and the years after, operating in complete contrast to the foodbank model which has emerged in the last 15 years,” Professor Evans explained.
”Increasingly, there is a consensus that the cost of living crisis will see our response to food poverty evolve from food banks to something resembling community kitchens.
“Food banks offer invaluable support to those in need of emergency handouts, but they provide basic food and there is a stigma around using them due to people being required to prove they are ‘poor enough’ to access them.
“Social eating takes a more holistic approach.
“It allows you to serve fresh, healthy food in a community setting which improves people’s physical and mental health whilst also combating fuel poverty at a time when many food bank users are reporting that they are unable to use appliances to prepare or store food.”
What a pleasure to be here @StCeciliascjs for the 1st night of ‘Scouse Kitchen’: great food, candlelit dining, music! @SFoodbanks @IanByrneMP this is the dignified & healthy model of public feeding / social eating: how it was in the past, and - with political will - can be again pic.twitter.com/Iwi8MKHxoD
— Prof Bryce Evans (@drbryceevans) October 11, 2022
Community kitchens are one of five key demands of Byrne’s Right To Food campaign, which aims to make access to food a legal right for all.
The Scouse Kitchen trial takes place at St Celia's Junior School in Tuebrook between Tuesday 11 and Thursday 13 October and Byrne hopes what he sees as a vital service can be rolled out at a national level.
“The Scouse Kitchen pilot we are running this week in my West Derby constituency is a much-needed intervention for many families living here,” he added.
“I have mums, dads and carers in West Derby who cannot afford to put food on their family’s table, and I wanted to provide this opportunity for them to sit down together as a family in a restaurant setting and eat a meal together in dignity, for free.
“We know that food poverty causes endless problems for children, affecting their educational attainment and life chances and leading to poor health, reduced life expectancy, malnutrition and obesity.
“Food poverty also has a huge impact on human dignity and social cohesion in our polarised nation of foodbanks next to investment banks. Too many of our people experience despair and humiliation every day and my aim with this project is to provide a safe space in which families can eat together in dignity.
“In terms of my longer-term goal of ending food poverty, I am leading the Right To Food Campaign in Parliament, which aims to see an end to hunger in the UK. One of our five key demands is to introduce community kitchens across the country, and I see our Scouse Kitchen as the first step in achieving that.”