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Our work: Home Kitchen

Home Kitchen is a life transforming and purpose based social impact restaurant Asociat are helping to launch in partnership with the two time Michelin star winning chef – Adam Simmonds.

 

Home Kitchen will recruit and train people from London’s homeless community to work at every level – from front of house to kitchen team to marketing.

 

All recruits get London living wage and a pro catering qualification. Home Kitchen’s mission is to improve the future employability prospects of their recruits, to move them into meaningful and secure work in the industry, and to lift them out of poverty.

INSIGHT

In Nov 2022, UK catering and hospitality had the second highest level of unfilled jobs vacancies ( here ). UKHospitality CEO Kate Nicholls MBE warned that massive labour shortages were holding the sector back.

 

And yet there are at least 274,000 homeless people in the UK!

 

Meanwhile, 42% of all UK bosses (Crisis UK) would fire a member of staff if they became homeless. Most of them would never hire a homeless person. Stereotypes skew the picture.

 

Even people who should know better harbour such prejudices. Our current Home Secretary shockingly said that Homelessness was a ‘lifestyle choice’.

 

Asociat are helping Home Kitchen to change the flawed, but common perception of homeless people.  We are working with this important social enterprise to accelerate their mission…

What we do…

Strategic advice: Asociat and the Home Kitchen team have worked together to identify the right partners and capabilities to create the optimal conditions for success in the enterprise, while being sensitive to the needs of the homeless people that Home Kitchen will support. Our work for Home Kitchen saw a multi-faceted comms campaign that aimed to secure support across four critical areas: Fundraising, Operations, Brand Partnerships and Media Coverage…

Campaign and content: We set up a crowdfunding site at www.chuffed.org.  After extensive research to ascertain areas of spend/investment, we recruited teams of fundraisers to help us reach target.

 

A compelling campaign film, a targeted social media outreach program and event-based fundraising were all rolled out to drive donations. We’ve now helped to raise a huge amount – £327,108. When we add on the VIK (value-in-kind) contributions from our partners, it’s clear… the fundraising target has been achieved.

Events:  We worked with multiple partners to deliver a series of fundraising events:  A concert at the Taj-Hotel featuring the Shillong-Chamber-Choir raised £3200, while an event with Oxley-Gin at Hoxton Bar and Grill raised +£5000. A sponsored run in Battersea Park with Fresh-Fitness-Foods raised £2000. An event at Oxo Tower with retail estate agents DTRE raised £23,000. Our events strategy was successful – contributing £33,200 towards our target and rallying 1000s of people to our cause.

Media Coverage:  We rolled out a London focussed PR campaign aiming to achieve a degree of fame to act as a conversation starter when making our opening approaches to potential partners. The results included being featured twice in The-Big-Issue and elevated to their Changemakers 2023 100 list, Evening-Standard, Time-Out, Positive-News, My-London, The-Caterer and Victoria-Magazine.

To show our brand partnership with Camden Town Brewery

Brand Partnerships & Sponsorships: We’ve secured headline and support sponsorships from:

 

  • Budweiser Brewing Group’s Camden Town Brewery will support Home Kitchen with taps, and lines installs, POS materials, staff training and stock.
  • Pernod Ricard will similarly support with all Home Kitchen’s spirits and wine. requirements, as well as back bar display and bar refurbishments, perfect pour and cocktail training, plus launch support for opening week. menus and print, and glassware.
  • Brakes Bros are sponsoring some of Home Kitchen opening food produce requirements and support with kitchen expertise, stock replenishment planning, ordering and logistics.
Our work: Home Kitchen
  • Instant Brands / Corelle have sponsored Home Kitchen’s kitchenware, earthenware and crockery and utensils requirements.
  • Zurich Insurance supported us to raise our very first £20,000 from staff initiatives and will provide our business insurance needs ongoing
  • Home Kitchen’s partner brands also extend to:  Soup Kitchen London, Tata, Taj-Hotels, Dentsu, Frog (Cap Gemini), Denny’s,  The-Big-issue, Savoy-Educational-Trust, Savills, Double-Dutch and Haelu-Drinks.

 

Asociat and the Home Kitchen team have also secured operational partnerships to deliver on employment training, recruitment, and duty of care/pastoral support when employing people from vulnerable backgrounds. These include:

The future

This is a genuine long-term project, which means our work for Home Kitchen is not over yet – it probably never will be. What you’ve just read is the first phase strategy and delivery – which has brought Home Kitchen forwards from the conception of the idea, to the point where the enterprise is now ready to open its doors to paying members of the public in 2024.

 

We feel we’ve achieved a lot – that our client has already started to change perceptions about homelessness – how else has Home Kitchen galvanised the support and commitment from the public, corporates, the third sector, the private sector and media?

 

Home Kitchen has now put an offer in to lease a restaurant site in central London and the management team are aiming for a Q2/spring opening – watch this space.

 

Our work: Home Kitchen

 

Best Long-term Project & Changing Cultural Perceptions

Festival of Media Cause Campaign Awards 2023
Edelman image

Business is now the sole institution seen as competent and ethical; government is viewed as unethical and incompetent. Business is under pressure to step into the void left by government.

Edelman Trust Barometer 2023
Consumers care about sustainability and back it up with their wallets. image

Consumers are shifting their spending toward products with ESG-related claims.

Consumers care about sustainability and back it up with their wallets. McKinsey, and NielsenIQ 2023
Tanya Joseph – creator of Sport England’s This Girl Can campaign image

Purpose will be central to rebuilding brands in the society that is emerging after the pandemic. The businesses that will not just survive, but thrive, over the coming months and years will be those whose leaders embrace the notion that there is no merit in profit without purpose.

Tanya Joseph – creator of Sport England’s This Girl Can campaign Columnist, Marketing Week

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