The Akshaya Patra Foundation has been serving up hot vegetarian meals to children in London from its new kitchen in Watford during half term.
The zero waste and self-sustaining kitchen model was originally created in India, providing nutritious lunches from 52 kitchens to more than 1.8 million children in over 19,000 state-run schools every school day.
It will now cook two meal cycles a day in England - one for children during the holidays (2,000 meals) and one for those living in food poverty (3,000 meals) across London and Watford. When operating at full capacity the kitchen can produce 5,000 child meals per day and 4,000 meals for those living in food poverty, the foundation says.
The charity is planning to set up similar kitchens in Leicester and east London and expects to keep delivering free meals to schools in the Christmas holidays.
It is now calling for the government to fund its programme as part of the National Food Strategy championed by England and Manchester United footballer Marcus Rashford.
The strategy recommends that the government provides food to support children eligible for free school meals during holidays, this should include an additional 1.1m children living in disadvantaged families but not eligible for support.
The Akshaya Patra Kitchen model can produce meals at a cost of £2 per meal, which it says will save the government 33 per cent of the cost of traditional school meals.
Ramesh Sachdev, founder of GMSP, which funds the project, said: “We saw the speed and scale at which Akshaya Patra mobilised to feed nutritious meals to schoolchildren in India. We knew that this is what the UK needed now to tackle our growing food inequalities.
“Our shared goal is to expand the GMSP Akshaya Patra Kitchen’s centralised model to serve more nutritious holiday meals and then free school meals to children in London and around the UK. With this approach, the UK can solve holiday hunger and ensure our future generations have hot, fresh meals to fuel their minds.”
Bhawani Singh Shekhawat, chief executive of Akshaya Patra UK/Europe, added: “We believe that the cornerstone of a nation’s wellbeing rests in its approach and adoption of nutrition. In the UK we have long and systemically ignored this. Sadly, we are still solving hunger at scale, which could create a deeper nutrition problem. We must solve the issue of nutrition and in doing so defeat hunger.
“Our experience in providing fresh, hot meals to 1.8 million children in India daily combined with the very best in nutrition science, food technology and frugal innovation means we have a unique model fit for the 21st century. We are responding to the hunger crisis in a way that improves the quality of meals for the UK’s most disadvantaged children at scale.”
The kitchen opens as thousands of businesses and local authorities across England are rallying together to feed hungry children after Conservative MPs voted down a Labour Party motion to provide free school meals during holidays until Easter 2021.
Yesterday, Prime Minister Boris Johnson hinted that plans would be put in place to feed children over Christmas following mass support for a campaign led by Rashford.
