Prept. Foundation is a UK registered Charity with a mission to transform how young people connect to food through immersive, hands-on culinary education.
We work in secondary schools across Sussex and London delivering a food education programme designed to open the world of food, hospitality and cooking to young people who otherwise might not get the chance to explore it. Prept’s work connects culinary learning with real life skills, embedding a way of learning that makes food fun and exciting, from basic knife skills to understanding where our food comes from.
We give young people the tools to build a healthy relationship with food and engage hospitality professionals to build confidence and inspire young people to consider a future in food.
Prept. Foundation works to ensure food education is accessible for every single young person we engage with. Prept’s 3 session in-school programme is fully funded to remove any financial barriers for schools and young people.
Our outreach focuses on areas of high need so that we can give opportunities to those who will benefit the most and we work closely with schools and education professionals to learn the needs of each group so that we can provide the best learning experience possible. All our recipes are designed to be easy to make at home, affordable and use planet friendly ingredients so that students can take home what they learn and use it to help educate their communities and recreate the dishes affordably.
By investing in the next generation, we hope to strengthen food cultures and help to create a more accessible food system where no child is left behind.
As Chef Educators, our role is to bring food education to life in the classroom. Using our backgrounds as professional chefs we translate our knowledge into accessible, fun and engaging sessions that build confidence, curiosity and skills for life.
By giving these kinds of experiences to young people who may not otherwise get to engage with food or cooking, we can encourage them to make better food choices, be informed in their decisions and pass on their learning to those around them. We work closely with our suppliers to provide ingredients that are exciting, fresh and seasonal so that young people can engage with ingredients in the sessions that they can access at home too.
The Farm to Fork experience gives young people that full circle moment when they connect what they have learnt in the classroom to a real life example. We give them a tour of a working farm showing them how crops are raised and harvested and introduce them to the dairy sheds so that they can understand how and where milk comes from. They will then spend time in the kitchen cooking a dish with some of the ingredients they have seen on the farm and eat together at the end to give the full process. Witnessing first-hand how much work, care and effort goes into producing the foods on their plate helps young people grow an appreciation for their food. The experience also builds respect for agriculture and informs their choices for the future.
Beans and pulses are one of the cornerstones of our recipes at Prept.
They are affordable, easily accessible and nutrient rich making them a great asset for families working on a tight-budget. Not only are they great to us but they are also amazing for soil health, have low environmental impact and store really easily for long periods so help to reduce food waste. They are easy to use as meat replacements in so many dishes and in the classroom they are the perfect way to encourage young people to try something new, think about what they are putting into their bodies and how to eat more sustainably.
Beans are often met with anticipation because they have a bad rep for being boring but we find by the end of the session most young people are really surprised by how much they enjoy what they have made and by adding just a few great flavours, beans are transformed.
For chefs who want to give back but aren’t sure how to talk to young people, what is the ‘secret sauce’ to making food education inclusive and exciting?
