Renowned culinary institute, Le Cordon Bleu London announced the winner of their coveted  Julia Child Scholarship. Bianca-Tia Mesuria from Hackney in London, was the chosen candidate having beaten off immense competition with entry numbers for the prize at a record high this year.

An evening to discuss equality within the food industry and why it is still such a hot topic even in the 21st century. We’ll discuss the moves that many restaurants and organisations are making to ensure parity with the hospitality industry and what we can all do to make working in the food industry a more balanced place in terms of gender.

Staffing in restaurants is currently a very hot topic, particularly in London. So how do you keep a Central London restaurant with over 350 staff running like clockwork? Our co-founder, Mecca Ibrahim, chatted to Caroline Taylor, General Manager of Mayfair’s Novikov Restaurant & Bar. This glamorous and huge restaurant has two dining rooms, covering Asian & Italian food, and a Lounge Bar.  Caroline shared her experience of launching and managing two of London’s most influential and ground-breaking venues the restaurant in the OXO Tower and the Fifth Floor at Harvey Nichols.  She also shared her views on staff motivation & recruitment in the restaurant world.

The Cookbook Festival returns to Chiswick from 12th to 16th September 2019 as part of the Chiswick Book Festival.  The festival has a great and varied line-up of chefs; every single one with their own fascinating approach to cooking and inspirational stories to share. If you are looking for an  intimate venue where you can meet and see the authors in action cooking and talking about their food, recipes and kitchen style, then this is the event for you.

Continuing our series of Female Food Founders interviews we’re about to approach a number of exhibitions and trade shows which support food businesses, so we chatted to Karen Green who is speaking at some of these shows. As well as being the author of Recipe for Success, about how to run a successful food business, Karen is the founder of Food Mentor which she set up to help growing food companies overcome commercial challenges.  Our co-founder, Mecca Ibrahim, spoke to Karen for her thoughts on common challenges facing the budding food industries today & how the industry is changing.

In the tenth of our series of Female Food Founders interviews we look at a producer in the growing area of “free from” and allergy foods.  We first met Sonia Mason Founder of Slightly Different Foods  who have the largest range of FODMAP Friendly accredited sauces developed and manufactured in the UK at the huge Allergy and Free From Show at Olympia in London. Our co-founder, Mecca Ibrahim, chatted with Sonia to discover what FODMAP is, how Small Business Sunday helped her business and how to scale up from home kitchen to wider distribution.

Stitches in Time is a community arts, education and enterprise charity based in East London. They are launching an exciting new Food Enterprise Project with Bangladeshi women in Tower Hamlets from September to December this year.  The aim is to practically support innovative & creative ideas to help into employment people living in a borough with the greatest levels of inequality in the country. We are delighted to help them with their mission to demonstrate that Bengali women too can work in the food industry. Find out more in an introductory video we helped to produce with Aida Khan of Shola Kitchen.

In the ninth of our series of Female Food Founders interviews we turn again to  education and training.  We met Catherine Farhina Founder of The Chefs’ Forum – an organisation that brings together leading chefs, colleges and food trade suppliers in the UK and beyond.  She also set up The Chefs’ Forum Educational Foundation to raise funds for young people in the hospitality industry. Our co-founder, Mecca Ibrahim, chatted with Catherine  about how she got into the hospitality business, the importance of developing young chefs and her food inspirations in the industry.