Award-Winning Chef’s Academy

Our Chef’s Academy is a free event for trusts to participate in – a jam-packed day with innovative chef techniques and methods, industry insights and nutritional education to help improve all skill sets in and out of the kitchen. It is a superb introduction for those new to NHS catering, as well as more developed chefs.

The Warrington Chef’s Academy supported the rollout of combining recipes from a number of our Culinary Concepts such as Hatched, Root Kitchen, Bamboo, and even our newest addition, the Cakes and Bakes Culinary Concept.

These events demonstrate how combining relevant, tailored training programmes with delicious, new recipes, can help to motivate and inspire the great chefs working within our NHS trusts, accelerating the benefits of collaboration.

The Culinary and Dietetics team from NHS Supply Chain: Food held the last Chef’s Academy of the business year on 31 May 2023 at Warrington Vale Royal College with their highest attendance to date.

Catering supervisors and 14 chefs from trusts such as Greater Manchester Mental Health, Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh Northern Care Alliance, Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust, Southport and Ormskirk Hospital NHS Trust, and Warrington and Halton Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust attended the event.

Chef’s Academy Objectives:

• Teach new culinary skills through a practical, hands-on learning approach.
• Inspire NHS chefs by introducing them to new, tasty recipes and show how NHS Supply Chain: Food Culinary Concepts can be adapted and recreated within their trust.
• Give insights into the National food review and the mandatory NHS food standards.
• Understand the importance of nutrition and dietetics within the hospital setting.
• Foster discussion and collaboration with other NHS chefs to create great food, while also providing the opportunity to share best practices.

Our Chef‘s Academies provide added value and inspiration for our NHS catering teams and are always well received, this is reflected in our average rating of 9.8 out of 10 feedback score from the day, as voted by the attendees. As a gesture of our appreciation for their time and participation, each attendee is given a free apron to take away with them.

We are proud to be continuing with our Chef’s Academy events throughout the rest of 2023, with our next Chef’s Academy training events taking place on Tuesday 18 July 2023 in Ealing, West London and Wednesday 26 July 2023 in Norwich. For further information on our Chefs Academies and Culinary Concepts, please get in touch with your local Food Client Account Manager or contact our NHS Supply Chain: Food team.