Hospitality leader joins the diner with a difference

Home Kitchen appoints Andrew Fishwick

Home Kitchen, the diner with a difference, that will employ and train homeless people, is delighted to reveal that Andrew Fishwick has joined the board of this unique social venture.

Andrew will add over 20 years of experience in the catering and hospitality sector – he currently helms Epicurean Endeavours plc – a new London Stock Exchange listed investment vehicle in the Hospitality sector and is the Executive Chair for SALT, a leading food and drink marketing consultancy and Adamo – a hospitality management company which he also co-founded.  His past governance roles include the board of the British Institute of Innkeepers and interim CEO for several multi award-winning gastro pub groups, restaurant groups and hotels.

As a cultural entrepreneur, Andrew has produced two dozen West End and Broadway Shows and can claim Tony, Olivier and Evening Standard Theatre Awards winners amongst their number – a career phase that explains his election as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

Speaking about his appointment, Andrew remarked…

“I could not be more thrilled to join this amazing project. Home Kitchen will be a lifeline for our recruits, giving them the opportunity to pursue a career in hospitality at a time that the industry needs new talent more than ever.”

Andrew joins his governance expertise to the culinary skills of chef Adam Simmonds, winner of 11 AA rosettes, two Michelin stars and the BBC’s Great British Menu, and co-founders Michael Brown (also CEO of Asociat) and Alexander Brown – respectively trustee and director of the homelessness charity Soup Kitchen London.

About Home Kitchen

Home Kitchen is a life transforming and purpose based not-for-profit restaurant venture that will recruit and train people from the homeless community to work at every level – from front of house to kitchen team. All recruits are paid a London living wage and study for a City and Guilds assured catering qualification.

A number of partners have joined the enterprise to ensure appropriate duty of care support to all recruits: These include Beyond Food Foundation – a charity specialising in training vulnerable people into the catering and hospitality sector, and other qualified partners in the recruitment area; Crisis UK (employment team), the homeless charity (of which Prince William is a patron) The Passage, and the social enterprise  Beam – which sponsors vulnerable people into meaningful work opportunities.

Home Kitchen’s site is in London Victoria Station. Opening night is planned for early 2023.

Why Home Kitchen is important

The UK hospitality, catering and food sectors currently have 400,000 vacancies – jobs that no-one wants to fill! The sectors are in crisis according to some news reports. The Office of National Statistics verifies this data – it says the Hospitality sector posted record number of vacancies last year and struggled to fill them.

And yet, there are 274,000 homeless people in the UK! Meanwhile, 42% of all UK bosses would fire a member of staff if they became homeless and almost all of them would never hire a homeless person. Stereotypes skew the picture.

Home Kitchen aims to be a successful case study to help change the commonly held perceptions. To encourage others to get behind this community – and improve their future employability. Importantly, we’ll create a compelling case for the social impact of Home Kitchen – to take to government and civic society to prove you can make a success of employing people from this community and so unlock more support – to create more Home Kitchens and get more homeless people into work.  Home Kitchen will also act as a conduit between its sponsors and job placements e.g., Fresh Fitness Foods (one of our fundraising partners) have offered to employ two people from the first cohort of recruits after the pilot phase.

Home Kitchen arose from a fortuitous meeting of minds at London Soup Kitchen – a charity which rose to fame after successfully launching the world’s first mental-health drop-in centre inside a soup kitchen (August 2019). A positive news story that was covered in BBC and ITV broadcast news, The Guardian, Big Issue and other news outlets.

It was the pandemic that brought Michael Brown and Alexander Brown, respectively trustee and Director at Soup Kitchen London, together with Adam Simmons – who kindly offered his services to the charity during lockdown – Soup Kitchen London was among the 5% of London’s +500 soup kitchens which stayed open in the pandemic. Adam found himself cooking for 200 service users daily – perhaps the only soup kitchen that can boast a Michelin star chef!

Story: Home Kitchen appoints Andrew Fishwick