Burnt Chef Project launches mental health app for the hospitality industry

The Burnt Chef Project has partnered with NHS-approved mental wellbeing app, Thrive, to bring its services to hospitality workers.

Thrive offers users unlimited access to clinically supervised therapists who can provide text-based support at critical times via an in-app chat function.

The app has over 100 hours of meditation and other wellbeing tools, including resilience building assignments. Its services are available in nine different languages, and users remain anonymous.

Thrive is available to businesses on a monthly subscription basis. A Burnt Chef Project spokesperson told The Caterer that it has secured special rates of £3 per person, per month for hospitality businesses to use the app.

Burnt Chef Project was launched in 2019 by supplier and photographer Kris Hall with the aim of raising awareness of mental health issues and improving working conditions within the sector.

Hall pointed to the current long NHS waiting lists for therapy and said the app’s offering was “vital” for the hospitality industry.

He added: “The wellbeing app is the missing piece which moves us from a reactive position [as a crisis line and offering mental health first aid training] to a proactive position, so individuals can be truly in control of their wellbeing and look to mid-long term sustainable development.”

Chris McWhirr, Thrive partnership manager, said: “The past few years have put even further pressures on the hospitality industry and to be able to offer this long-term solution to these already stretched teams is a great step forward.”

Burnt Chef Project’s most recent survey found that 84% of hospitality professionals had experienced difficulties with their mental health during their career. Analysis of Health and Safety Executive (HSE) data found that self-reported cases of work-related stress, depression or anxiety in the UK food and accommodation sector surged by 160% between 2010 and 2020.

More operators have begun to act to improve staff wellbeing amid an ongoing recruitment crisis in the sector. In 2022 firms have raised pay, adjusted rotas, offered mental health first aid training and support, and even switched to four-day working weeks - many for the first time.

The Burnt Chef Project previously partnered with the Health and Safety Executive's (HSE) Working Minds campaign to challenge work-related stress in the hospitality industry.

A recent survey commissioned by jobs site Caterer.com found that 20% of young respondents cited wanting a less stressful job as a reason for shunning hospitality as a career choice.