Manchester-based hospitality collective launch crowdfund to help feed city's vulnerable
Jointly led by chef and former Great British Menu finalist Mary-Ellen Mctague, and the Cloudwater Brewery, the Eat Well MCR collective is currently working to provide upwards of 1,800 meals per week to those in need, and has today (14 May) launched a crowdfund to raise funds to help sustain the operation.
Initially formed in response to the sudden worsening of the existing UK food crisis due to the rapid Coronavirus spread, Eat Well MCR is providing meals and access to fresh produce and supplies to families with children in local hospitals; those living with food poverty; women seeking refuge; homeless people; and frontline NHS workers.
Hospitality businesses across the city including Elite Bistros, Honest Crust, Beehive Foods, Where the Light Gets in, Hawksmoor, Higher Ground, Isca, A Taste of Honey, The Eagle & Child, Baratxuri and many others have pooled resources in order to provide the meals, with an aim to stretch the support so it reaches more than 2000 people per week.
“Feeding people is the best way of showing people that you care; that you wish to support them,” says Mctague.
“Faced with an empty restaurant kitchen, and a load of donations of fresh food that had no other place to go, the obvious thing to do was to cook the food and take it to those who needed it.
“I’m so proud of our city and our industry. I’ve been seeing the absolute best in people since we started this thing, and it’s a great privilege to be able to do what we’re doing.
“Food inequality isn’t new, and it isn’t going away any time soon, but we feel like we’ve now found a way to be part of the solution to a very unfair problem.”
More details on the Eat Well MCR fundraising campaign can be found here.
