Welcome!

Alchemic Kitchen is an action-based project that works to address food access and injustice in the Northwest.

We believe everyone should have access to fresh local produce, however this is not always the case. Our place-based projects work to create a more fair and equitable food system through environmentally sustainable projects.

Currently working in Knowsley, Alchemic Kitchen aims to create a system change in the local food economy and use replicable models that support people to eat a healthy, fresh. and environmentally sustainable diet.

Our work is sustainable and regenerative, meaning we work to change the social, environmental, and economic context for local communities by working with local people through the lens of food.

Alchemic Kitchen is part of Feedback, a national charity working to regenerate nature by transforming our food system. Feedback’s campaigns include tackling the scandal of over 10 million tonnes of food wasted every year in the UK. Click here to find out more about Feedback: Feeding People, Backing the Planet.

Our Story

Alchemic Kitchen started in 2018 as a delivery project of Feedback. We began as a development kitchen making jams, chutneys, and ketchups from surplus food waste. The kitchen demonstrated how to create a socially, economically, and environmentally regenerative model that taught people the skills to create a secondary market/ circular economy from waste food.

In 2020 the national lockdowns further exacerbated the systemic injustices experienced by people across Britain, as isolated people living in food deserts had little or no access to food. At this time, we began working with local community partners to delivery emergency food provision to people across Knowsley. This process led us to change our focus from working with surplus food to working even closer to the community across three key areas: access, education, advocacy.

Projects

ACCESS: Queen of Greens Bus

The Queen of Greens is an innovative project that will deliver fresh local produce directly to communities that currently have difficulty accessing healthy and affordable food across Liverpool City Region. Working with Feeding Liverpool and Paul the greengrocer, the Queen will stop at 31 locations across the region and encourage people to buy the amount they need so to minimise waste.

The Queen will accept Healthy Start vouchers, Alexandra Rose vouchers as well as cash and card payments.

EDUCATION: Fed Up Cooking Course

As part of the legacy of the work done during the pandemic, we have been working with Livv Housing and the team at Horse and Jockey pub to deliver AQA accredited slow-cooker cooking lessons to people in Knowsley.

Participants attend weekly classes where they learn to make easily replicated, healthy, affordable meals with as little food waste as possible.

Attendees are given a pantry bag with a range of basic store cupboard items, a slow cooker, a fresh food parcel and a binder filled with all the recipes they’ve learnt at the end of the course. It is great to see people adding to these binders with recipes they have found themselves as their confidence in the kitchen increases.

ADVOCACY: Representing the wants and needs of local people

We are compiling a report that will communicate the findings from a community consultation that is asking residents what their needs and wants are when co-creating a food system that is fair and ethical for everyone.

The report will be used by governmental and strategic organisations in the region to meet their targets in addressing food insecurity and economic injustice to create a more fair and equal society in Liverpool City Region.