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This episode features a compelling discussion on food charities and their vital role in addressing the food crisis exacerbated by the pandemic. Kemi Akinola, the CEO of Be Enriched, shares her organization’s journey, highlighting the shift from community meals to emergency food distribution during lockdown.
With a remarkable effort, Be Enriched managed to deliver around 5,000 emergency food parcels to those in need across Wandsworth and Lambeth. Kemi reflects on the moral obligation she felt to support her community and the innovative ways they adapted to continue providing assistance.
The episode also touches on Kemi's plans for a mobile greengrocer bus aimed at improving food access, showcasing her commitment to ensuring that everyone has access to quality food.
In a heartfelt and engaging conversation, Kemi Akinola, CEO of Be Enriched, opens up about the charity's transformative work amid the food crisis exacerbated by the pandemic.
Founded in 2013, Be Enriched initially focused on supporting at-risk youth, but the organization swiftly adapted to address the urgent needs of those facing food insecurity and social isolation during COVID-19. Kemi shares her profound sense of responsibility to help those in need, particularly when many people struggled to access food amidst empty supermarket shelves.
The charity's rapid response included the distribution of thousands of emergency food parcels, illustrating a remarkable commitment to community support.
The episode delves into the emotional landscape of the pandemic as Kemi recounts the challenges of restricting community meals, which were crucial for fostering connections among vulnerable individuals. Her ability to pivot the organization and leverage volunteer support showcases the power of community spirit, with humorous anecdotes about unconventional delivery methods, including a horse and cart that brought joy to children during lockdown.
This lighthearted yet poignant narrative highlights Kemi's belief in the importance of maintaining a human connection, even in the most challenging circumstances.
The discussions also touch upon the necessity of food quality and the commitment to providing nutritious options, reinforcing the idea that everyone deserves access to healthy food, regardless of their financial situation.
As the podcast progresses, Kemi encourages listeners, particularly those in the hospitality industry, to remain optimistic and proactive. She emphasizes the value of utilizing one’s skills to contribute to community projects, positioning volunteering as a vital pathway for personal and professional growth during tough times.
Plans for a mobile greengrocer bus further illustrate Be Enriched's innovative approach to expanding access to food. The episode culminates in a powerful message about resilience, adaptability, and the collective responsibility to support one another, leaving listeners inspired to take action in their own communities.
Kemi Akinola's story serves as a testament to the profound impact of compassion and community engagement, reminding us all of the strength found in working together to overcome adversity.
This episode also saw donations being given to the Charity and a grant from Sainsburys' supply chain.
Highlights:
🎧 Tune in to listen to the full episode for more touching stories and deep insights into the how a community in need kept food on their tables, and some of the triumphs of the hospitality industry.
Sarah Kettel
00:00:00.480 - 00:00:11.033
Welcome to this, the second episode of our podcast. Timothy Put the Kettel on, a Talking Hospitality podcast series.
I'm Sarah Kettel. I'm a chef and a restaurant manager. And this is Timothy R Andrews, and...
Timothy R Andrews
00:00:11.049 - 00:00:17.785
I'm a consultant working on the building of a new hospitality academy and involved in a number of hospitality projects.
Sarah Kettel
00:00:17.865 - 00:00:45.775
So just to explain to you the name of our podcast, there isn't a typo, you'll know that. I'm Sarah Kettel, often called Sarah Kettle. I'm not a kitchen appliance, but it's a play on words.
In last week's episode, we talked about inspiring stories from the hospitality industry during lockdown. We have listeners from all over the world, including the uk, Poland, Holland and the us. Thank you to everybody that listened and shared our podcast.
We hope to share some more inspirational stories with you in the future.
Timothy R Andrews
00:00:46.715 - 00:01:24.145
On Today's podcast, with 31% of pubs and 50% of hospitality businesses still to reopen, we look at what the future in hospitality might look like, some of the difficulties, and provide some top tips on how to survive the new norm. So let's get straight in the future, in the future, I think local is going to be a key selling point for businesses.
If you're looking at the recruitment market, for example, a lot of people, and partly this is partly influenced by Brexit, but people are looking much more at the local hiring of people. So people within the area.
Sarah Kettel
00:01:24.225 - 00:01:51.785
Yeah, you're right.
And I think we've all just sort of slid, probably, I don't know, maybe in the last 50 years into this, this whole model of life where you can't afford to live, where you work, you have to commute. All these new train lines are being built saying, oh, isn't it brilliant?
You can get somewhere in 15 minutes, but there's no trains running, the economy stops and nobody stops thinking about that. I want to be local. I don't want to commute into central London, you know, I don't want to travel an hour to get to work.
And actually, nobody does now. Nobody.
Timothy R Andrews
00:01:52.405 - 00:01:58.381
And also, I think people want to see local produce as well.
Sarah Kettel
00:01:58.573 - 00:02:00.485
Oh, they do, absolutely. Yeah.
Timothy R Andrews
00:02:00.525 - 00:02:06.293
You know, I think that's going to be a key factor as well. Where does the food come from? What's the story behind the food?
Sarah Kettel
00:02:06.389 - 00:02:13.215
That's becoming such a key issue right now, when we've seen how the government have backtracked on the U.S. trade deal.
Timothy R Andrews
00:02:13.325 - 00:02:13.803
Yes.
Sarah Kettel
00:02:13.899 - 00:02:17.731
Brexit. Luckily, everyone is talking about chlorinated chicken.
Timothy R Andrews
00:02:17.843 - 00:02:18.475
Yeah.
Sarah Kettel
00:02:18.635 - 00:02:57.825
You know that? I did. I was one of the people who's emailed the Prime Minister and asked him what on earth he thinks he's doing.
Because ultimately, when you think about it, the cheapest foods that come in as imports and sadly is usually meats that goes up there with processed food. These are going to be going to the poorest in society who are missing out. And so. And nutrition is key. We're talking about the nhs.
You know, everyone's been stood out there clapping the nhs.
Well, you can't stand out there and clap the NHS if you're not going to make sure that somebody who maybe is teaching on the poverty line in your community is not eating well because they're going to get sick and that's going to put Australia on our health services. Everything is connected and we lost that disconnect before and we need to get back.
Timothy R Andrews
00:02:58.125 - 00:02:59.105
Absolutely.
Sarah Kettel
00:02:59.805 - 00:03:07.645
If you serve a seasonal menu, if you shop local, if you buy local, if it's local produce, you're doing something good for your community and the world that you live in.
Timothy R Andrews
00:03:08.025 - 00:03:36.179
Absolutely right. Two other areas I think that are going to be different. One is the use of technology and one which we'll come back to, which is hygiene.
Now, I think if we talk about the technology, we've already seen it with some of the venues that have opened, orders had to be made in advance or via the use of an app. And it will be linked largely, if they ever get it right to test and trace.
Sarah Kettel
00:03:36.347 - 00:03:37.575
When's that, then?
Timothy R Andrews
00:03:39.035 - 00:04:04.963
The world beating app, when it does happen, it will be tied into. People will need to order beforehand, they will need to make reservations beforehand that are dropping in as a sort of casual passerby.
That's going to be minimized quite dramatically or eradicated in some cases, people will need to order. So if restaurants and pubs will need to have time to in app to.
Sarah Kettel
00:04:04.979 - 00:04:42.889
Order drinks, for example, well, this is another way in which the industry has responded and I heard something fantastic that had happened yesterday. So obviously we all use point of sale technology to take payments.
There's a company that set up called Good Till, they created some software which was being used, but it wasn't huge as they thought it would be, and it was actually created for stadiums.
So if you were sat, say, I don't know, in the O2 or at Wembley, you could sit at your seats and you could order with the app and then go collect bar and they'd say it'll be ready in five minutes.
A bit like, you know when you used to go to like chiquitos when you were young and they give you the little buzzy thing where you sit and wait for it to go off.
Timothy R Andrews
00:04:42.897 - 00:04:44.165
Yeah, that's right, yeah.
Sarah Kettel
00:04:44.665 - 00:05:14.995
It was a mobile app version of that, essentially, and it told you when, which bar to go to, what time to get there, and your order will be ready and bagged up and ready to go.
Now, there wasn't as much uptake as they thought, but what they've been able to do is to successfully transform that into a technology that restaurants can use so that when you do order online, they already have the functionality to say, right, choose a pickup time and we'll tell you where to go. And that's already there. So we've already got the technology. So actually when it comes to that, we're kind of sorted, which is great.
Timothy R Andrews
00:05:15.115 - 00:05:21.455
We have the facilities already. It's about implementing them. So that's a really good tip.
Sarah Kettel
00:05:22.285 - 00:05:47.283
Robots.
I went to Alton Towers last year with my nephews and they've got a roller coaster restaurant there where your food comes out of the kitchen, which is above the restaurant on little tiny roller coasters on a track.
So your little roller coaster cart arrives at your table and then you take your food out of it yourself and put it on the table and then the roller coaster goes away again.
Timothy R Andrews
00:05:47.429 - 00:05:48.143
Brilliant.
Sarah Kettel
00:05:48.279 - 00:05:50.879
I mean, how cool is that? I think we should have that everywhere.
Timothy R Andrews
00:05:51.047 - 00:06:49.035
Although I'm a bit funny with robots because I saw an episode of X Files, Mulder and Scully went into a restaurant and it was all run by robots and it was very scary. So I'm going to stick with the human interaction, if that's okay. The other thing I think is hygiene will become very high up in the ninja.
Now, I don't mean the obvious making sure everything's clean. I think it's going to be the visibility of hygiene standards.
People are going to go in and they are going to want to see somebody wiping the tables down with the cloths, with the masks on, making sure that they're doing it, that there are hand sanitizers that they can see very easily. They understand that why there are spacing restrictions.
And I think that is where perhaps in the past we kind of hid these things because we didn't want to detract from the show or the experience, particularly the more high end stuff. Now that's going to be part of what people are going to look for.
Sarah Kettel
00:06:49.415 - 00:07:04.515
Yeah, I think you're right. And actually one of the things that I heard at the start of lockdown was before that, before everything shut.
And when the message quite clearly for a couple of months was wash your hands, then the instances of food poisoning went down.
Timothy R Andrews
00:07:04.975 - 00:07:05.743
Yeah.
Sarah Kettel
00:07:05.919 - 00:07:43.851
And not just in hospitality in homes, because it's, you know, when you work in hospitality, hygiene is up there, it's on your agenda, whether people see it or not. Washing your hands is just something that you do constantly.
And we, you know, we all have dish pan hands all the time because we're constantly keeping clean.
However, people at home weren't really doing that and then they were, and then there were less hospitalized people with things like Compylobacter, which is what the most common form of food poisoning you get from raw chicken, raw meat. So it's, it's good that everyone's appreciating it. It's not just us.
It's not just us that's got clean hands now, it's our customers as well, which is quite reassuring, I think.
Timothy R Andrews
00:07:43.883 - 00:08:32.587
Also the other thing is, what most people forget is that all good hospitality businesses had very high hygiene standards already.
And so really the use of risk assessments and the health and safety, if it was already implemented Covid is just a little bit extra addition to the standards that should already be maintained. So it's not like suddenly there's this big, oh, my goodness, how I going to deal with this?
It's another infection of which there may be some requirements depending on the venue to have PPE or not, or certain spacing or screens that you might need. But outside of that, a lot of the job was already being done, was already being cleaned.
Sarah Kettel
00:08:32.771 - 00:08:35.855
A good restaurant is one of the cleanest places you'll enter after a hospital.
Timothy R Andrews
00:08:37.005 - 00:09:27.685
People need to remember that now that venues have reopened, there is only so much that a hospitality business can be responsible for. You can't have a guard on the door watching people go to the loo to make sure they're not standing right next to each other, for example.
It's just not going to be practical for a lot of business.
So there has to be a degree of where we can educate, whether that's through posters, having hand sanitizers, making sure everything's clean properly, et cetera, et cetera. But there's a point where the customer has to. Businesses will need to look at the journey of the customer. Where do they go in and out?
Where do staff go in and out? What is the journey of the food as it arrives for preparation in the kitchen, all the way to when it is served onto the table.
And I think if they do that when they're making their risk assessments and they consider that when they're opening, they'll know whether it's practical or Not.
Sarah Kettel
00:09:28.985 - 00:09:30.569
Yeah, that's very true.
Timothy R Andrews
00:09:30.657 - 00:09:36.541
And hygiene and cleanliness, people will be part of the customer experience.
Sarah Kettel
00:09:36.733 - 00:09:38.469
Absolutely, yeah. It'll be the.
Timothy R Andrews
00:09:38.557 - 00:09:41.265
That's our new normal, that's our new norm.
Sarah Kettel
00:09:41.685 - 00:10:03.275
I think public hand washing is going to become a thing again. I noticed today when I took a short tube ride this morning that there are now absolutely enormous hand sanitizing stations inside every tube station.
And that's last week, some. So I think maybe we all just kind of forgot about sanitation for a bit. And luckily that's coming back, which I also think is a good thing.
Timothy R Andrews
00:10:03.615 - 00:10:34.095
Totally agree, totally agree. And I went to Hong Kong and one of the things that struck me there was people always washing their hands.
There's always opportunities because they had SARS previously and it stayed in their minds.
And of course Hong Kong has had outbreaks, but actually very short and very controlled and I believe that that is because they were ready for it because of what had happened before. And I suspect this is what's going to happen within the uk.
Sarah Kettel
00:10:34.995 - 00:10:49.575
Oh, yeah. We're going to have to be ready now. And I think our lack of space.
We're very guilty in the UK of being such an old country with old buildings that everything's really cramped because I think people used to be smaller, didn't they? They must have been.
Timothy R Andrews
00:10:50.115 - 00:10:51.459
Yes, they did, Sarah.
Sarah Kettel
00:10:51.547 - 00:11:23.755
People were tiny little miniature Britons. But we're all so much bigger now and we don't have any space. It's really hard. We need to make space for things again.
And we've never had that privilege of having the weather where we can kind of sit outside maybe three quarters of the year because obviously, you know, any bank holiday is going to rain and we have the craziest weather. But there needs to be more provision for space and air around everything we do.
Timothy R Andrews
00:11:24.385 - 00:11:30.233
Yes. Having an outside space is going to be essential, certainly in the next few months.
Sarah Kettel
00:11:30.329 - 00:11:47.045
Yeah, totally. I've seen some really good solutions actually to outside eating. I've seen something amazing in Paris, which was a cafe that's got its outside tables.
They've actually taken the chairs that you can't use. Instead of taking the chairs away, they filled them with giant teddy bears.
Timothy R Andrews
00:11:47.585 - 00:11:49.233
That is brilliant.
Sarah Kettel
00:11:49.329 - 00:11:55.365
It is the cutest thing I've ever seen. So every day is a teddy bears picnic and you social distance. I just think that's genius.
Timothy R Andrews
00:11:55.865 - 00:11:58.085
Brilliant. Great for marketing.
Sarah Kettel
00:11:59.985 - 00:12:04.241
It worked. They're in all the international newspapers, so. Yeah, it worked really well for them.
Timothy R Andrews
00:12:04.393 - 00:12:36.075
Yeah.
And of course in Holland there's also come up with some new tricks as well, so like, there's a restaurant that's got bubbles around tables and keeping them individual. And then the waiter brings the food over, but it's on a kind of like a. Or a plank.
And then they pass the food into the bubble so that only the people that are separated only get that meal. And there's no contact between the waiter and the guests, which is pretty cool, too. And it looks really funky, too.
Sarah Kettel
00:12:36.195 - 00:12:38.435
That is so bizarre, but kind of cool.
Timothy R Andrews
00:12:38.515 - 00:12:48.015
Okay, so to wrap up, we think that successful businesses need to consider in the future, or certainly in the immediate future, sustainability.
Sarah Kettel
00:12:48.435 - 00:12:49.155
Yep.
Timothy R Andrews
00:12:49.275 - 00:12:59.907
Which is something we're going to come to in a later episode. Story of the food is going to be much more important than before. Local produce, local talent.
Sarah Kettel
00:13:00.091 - 00:13:00.935
Yep.
Timothy R Andrews
00:13:02.755 - 00:13:06.495
They need to have creative ideas for being outside.
Sarah Kettel
00:13:07.235 - 00:13:08.735
Yes. They really do.
Timothy R Andrews
00:13:09.725 - 00:13:13.665
And hygiene and technology are going to be game changers.
Sarah Kettel
00:13:14.045 - 00:13:21.665
They are indeed. Thank you for listening.
Please share this podcast and let us know your thoughts and comments on what you think the future will look like in hospitality.
Timothy R Andrews
00:13:22.085 - 00:13:32.825
We look forward to you joining us in the next episode of Timothy Put the Kettel on, part of the Talking Hospitality podcast series. Available on iTunes, SoundCloud, Google Play, and YouTube. Thanks for listening.
Founder & CEO of Be Enriched | Social Entrepreneur | Community Advocate
Kemi Akinola is a dynamic leader in the UK’s hospitality and community sectors, serving as the Founder and Chief Executive of Be Enriched, a South London-based charity dedicated to reducing social isolation through food. Under her guidance, Be Enriched has launched innovative projects like the Food Bus, a mobile greengrocer and community space that brings affordable, nutritious food to areas experiencing food insecurity.
In addition to her role at Be Enriched, Kemi is the Deputy Leader of Wandsworth Council and the Cabinet Member for the Voluntary Sector, Business, and Culture. Her leadership in these positions underscores her commitment to fostering community cohesion and supporting local enterprises.
Kemi's dedication to social justice and community empowerment has been recognized through various accolades, including the Chris Herries Award for Co-operative Values and being named SME4Labour’s Councillor of the Year in 2022.
Her multifaceted contributions continue to inspire positive change, making her a prominent figure in promoting inclusivity and support within the hospitality industry and beyond.
