Tag Archives: scottish chefs

And that’s a wrap! … Well, a taco!

Summer means a chance to get outdoors, and for our Hospitality School classes that is no exception!

We’ve been starting to wrap up our year long cookery courses with local schools in the traditional Hub way, through a celebration of all things food & drink of course!

This Summer Street Food event held at Parkhill Enterprise Academy, Glasgow, was particularly special, a culmination of a year long foodie journey involving four schools that started back in August.

The FOOD SCHOOL SCOTLAND Programme was originally started in 2018 with a small seed fund from Connect Local Regional Food Fund, the aim was to inspire communities to explore local produce, how its grow and how it can be used to bring the community together.

Since 2018 we have been focused on growing this programme to include more young people from across the region, its great to see many more school get involved.

Mr Pepin, Deputy Head of Parkhill Secondary and founder of the Enterprise Academy is a huge ambassador for culinary education and has been instrumental in getting this project off the ground, believing in the vision that we had at Hub International.

‘Programmes like Food School Scotland are immensely beneficial for our students, allowing them access to the industry through hands on masterclasses, immersive visits to local businesses, farms and getting to work with the producers, suppliers and operators of the full Scottish Hospitality supply chain. It has become a flagship programme for our school and one that we can all get involved in, including teachers & parents, a chance for us all to learn about on of Scotland’s biggest industries.’

The Food School Scotland Programme Manager, Lauren said ‘These young people are well equipped to gain experience or employment in the Hospitality, Food & Drink sector. They have a variety of unique skills from butchery, handling game birds, patisserie, barista & mixology as well as the theory and understanding of our vast sector. My self and the team of ambassadors at Hub International absolutely adore working here each week and supporting the new cohort to progress one step at a time. Today is a proud day seeing them complete such an intense course.’

We couldn’t make this programme as exciting as it has been without our brilliant programme partners, so a huge thanks to this years supporters:

Glasgow City Council, Wiseman Dairies, Johnston Stallbridge, Royal Highland Education Trust, Chocolatia, Bare Bones Chocolate, The Fish Plaice, Clydeside Distillery, Braehead Foods, Tantrum Doughnuts, Rapscallion, Monin, Chef Garry Gill, Forager Brody Mac, Brakes Scotland.

If your business would like to be involved in Food School Scotland next year we would love to talk.

If you are interested in working with Hub International to develop your schools culinary programmes please do get in touch with lauren@hi-people.org

Steak pie & chocolate brownies

Lockdown has given us the chance to catch up with lots of our awesome chef ambassadors in their downtime and hear what they’ve been up to when not busy in the kitchen.

We thought it might be nice to share a few of their words of support as we know it can be such a hard time just now, especially for our young trainees who have only really just embarked on their career but have suddenly found themselves out of work all too soon. Believe it or not, chefs feel a bit lost too, they’re not used to not working and find it hard to sit still without something to do!

First up we heard from Stephen Hampson, of the Sodexo Sports & Leisure team. Stephen has been the Sous chef at Hampden Park for 4 years now, he has been supporting the Hi! employability programmes for the last couple of years, providing fun cooking challenges to trainees, chances to learn during work experience in the stadium kitchens and supporting many of you to gain employment with Sodexo, in particular during the 2018 European Championships which was an amazing opportunity to be a part of.

Stephen training young people of the Hi! Champions Academy we did with charity Achieve More Scotland in 2018

To keep your mind off what’s happening Stephen’s keen to share the message that things will pick up again, kitchens will be busier than ever so please try to enjoy this time off while you can, learn some new recipes and keep busy!

Stephen has shared his chocolate brownie recipe here with us, we cant wait to try it! Why not send us your pictures if you manage to have a go? Stephen would love to see them!

CHOCOLATE BROWNIES

There’s hundreds of different chocolate brownie recipes, here’s a great website I’ve been using during lockdown: https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/chocolate_brownies

The ingredients Stephen used were:

  • 185g unsalted butter
  • 185g dark chocolate
  • 85g plain flour
  • 40g cocoa powder
  • 50g white chocolate
  • 50g milk chocolate
  • 3 large eggs
  • 275g golden caster sugar
Stephen’s keeping busy in lockdown making chocolate brownies

Thanks for reading, and remember when you start working again you will look back on this time and wish you had spent more time relaxing, learning new things or catching up on boxsets, so be kind to yourself and enjoy a little me time!

Safe at home, not stuck at home

Steph

Charity Cooks Up a Storm to Plug Hospitality Skills Gap

Charity Cooks Up a Storm to Plug Hospitality Skills Gap

The first young people have graduated from a new programme helping to plug a recruitment gap in the hospitality sector, which has been described as a “crippling shortage” by one of the country’s top chefs.

The programme is a collaboration between Action for Children Scotland and Hub International and works with young people aged between 16 and 24 with an interest in hospitality or cookery. Throughout the programme, the young people earn industry specific qualifications, innovative educational experiences and spend time working in top hotels.

The new programme comes as leading chefs including Nick Nairn and Andrew Fairlie warn of the crisis gripping the sector. Mr. Nairn referred to “a crippling shortage of talent out there at the moment” while Mr Fairlie, of the eponymous restaurant at the Gleneagles golf resort, is on record saying: “We have stopped advertising for experienced staff and are now taking on people straight from college or with no experience whatsoever.”

This hospitality programme is the latest addition to Action for Children’s employability offering in Scotland. The charity has delivered employability programmes in Scotland since 2008. Initially offering ‘Youthbuild’, a construction based programme, the charity’s employability network now includes 11 services, supporting young people into careers in sectors as diverse as forestry and engineering and, now, the hospitality sector.

The move into providing hospitality training continues a journey that Action for Children have been on in recent years. Since 2014, around 20 young people have come through the charity’s ‘Yes Chef!’ programme, which sees them train as chefs in restaurants and kitchens across Glasgow.

Stephanie Wade CEO of Hub International said:
There’s been momentum building in the industry for some time to bring back the classical practical cookery training and development of professional hospitality skills that the young people are required to have in our trade. We listened to educators, chefs, hoteliers and restauranteurs to find out what skills they wanted young people to have. We took away the traditional classroom, lecture style approach to training, to design a programme that was 90% hands on, skills led, and employer backed, to produce real results. To inspire these young people in to hospitality careers, we needed to let them see and experience real working kitchens & bars, to cook with fresh produce, visit the producers, meet the makers and get to grips with all the equipment first hand, not through a textbook, and not just gain the mandatory qualifications. Our students even visit farms to see where Scottish produce is grown, and learn about the importance of seasonality & local produce when designing menus, they got the chance to dine out and experience 5* service at Blythswood square before getting the chance to work there. We were keen to launch the first project in the vibrant city of Glasgow, with its diverse food & drink scene, and due to the success with nearly all of the young people achieving roles in top hotels, we can’t wait to take the programme nationwide. Our aim is to help build confidence and create opportunities for anyone who may be struggling to gain meaningful employment, and of course support more great employers with their mission to inspire the next generation in to the industry we adore. Recruitment isn’t as simple as sticking and advert out anymore, we need to all work together to show young people how attractive and exciting hospitality careers can be, highlighting the positives instead of all the issues would be a good start.

James Cantley, Operational Director for Children’s Services at Action for Children said: “We are really proud to see the first young people graduate from our new hospitality programme.
“Hospitality is a crucial sector in Scotland but is suffering from a skills shortage. Our hope is that this new programme will support young people into careers in this sector and help plug this skills shortfall.

“Over the last 10 years, we have supported some 6,000 young people into employment, training or to re-engage with education through our network of employability programmes. The hospitality programme is an exciting new venture for everyone at Action for Children and builds on the success we have already had through our ‘Yes Chef!’ programme. Through this programme, we hope to help plug that gap and create the next generation of talented chefs.”