Charity launch sauce brand for sustainable income
- Published
A charity offering cooking classes to vulnerable people has partnered with a gardening group to provide locally-grown sustainable produce.
The Wiggly Charity in Gloucestershire aim to empower disadvantaged and disabled people by building life skills, tackling social isolation, and improving self-esteem.
To help fund their cookery courses, they have launched a chutney and preserves brand called 'Social Source', using seasonal ingredients harvested by local volunteers at Project Grow.
Wiggly manager Claire Foot says the joint enterprise allows participants to learn new skills and witness food production "from farm to fork".
At the start of this year, Wiggly teamed up with Project Grow to begin growing and harvesting vegetables at the Heritage Hub community gardens for use in their kitchen.
As the project flourished, they soon realised its potential to deliver social impact, by creating a sustainable brand whose profit benefited both community projects.
"It's just been an absolute game-changer for us," said Ms Foote.
"We've been able to give people volunteering opportunities that are full circle. So people can volunteer at the gardens and then come and cook with Wiggly, to see the whole process from farm to fork.
"Everything is absolutely as local and as fresh as it can be," she added.
Rosie Hart is co-manager at Roots Gloucester, a cafe and sustainable refill centre who now stock the Social Source chutneys.
"We at Roots really feel it's important to provide a platform for people to reach their customers," she said.
"We've helped them, they've helped us. It's a real part of our core ethos to support our neighbours."
Ms Hart says the products are extremely popular, and believes it is due to a developing awareness of the life cycle of food.
"People don't necessarily want to go to a supermarket and buy something packaged anymore, they want to know the story behind what's going into their bodies," she said.
Project Grow will be increasing their growing spaces by three times the size over the coming year, which means an expansion for food production and in turn, more Wiggly workshops.
"It's a huge challenge obviously, juggling that alongside our core offering of cookery courses, but it's really exciting," Ms Foote added.
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