Jamie Oliver’s Ministry of Food to invest £450,000 in food education

Jamie Oliver’s Ministry of Food Foundation has announced it will invest £450,000 in teaching people to cook healthy and sustainable food this year.

The investment will be delivered as part of a new circular funding model as the Ministry of Food sets the ambition of reaching one million people by 2030.

The announcement comes as the programme celebrates its 15th anniversary. The Ministry of Food was established in 2008 as a result of the celebrity chef’s frustration with the lack of government prioritisation of food education.

It launched with five sites in Rotherham, Bradford, Leeds, Newcastle and Stratford and has since expanded to 27 community locations and 43 schools, which have delivered lessons to 115,000 people.

The Jamie Oliver group has set an ambition to launch a further 20 sites in the UK this year.

Alison Corfield, head of social impact and sustainability at Jamie Oliver HQ, said: “15 years of the Ministry of Food – not to mention a quarter of a century of Jamie’s social impact work – is such an exciting opportunity for people to acknowledge and celebrate the power and importance of grass-roots education, and that the mission to get the nation cooking is still ongoing!

“We are thrilled as a business to be making a sizeable donation every year to the Ministry of Food Foundation, bringing our social impact arm into the main body of the Jamie Oliver Group. We aim to reach one million lives by 2030 and are really excited to get more schools and sites on board.”

The Ministry of Food recently launched its new Schools Programme pilot in 43 secondary schools across the country to share Oliver’s ‘10 Lessons to Save Your Life’, after finding that 30% of school-aged children still don’t know what a healthy diet is. This year the programme aims to reach 25,000 pupils.

The Ministry of Food will also partner with Food for Life in nationwide campaign Plant & Share, which will give schools and nurseries access to its Kitchen Garden Project resources.

Plant & Share will teach skills such as growing vegetables and reducing food waste, reaching more than 6,000 primary school pupils.