Stay Ahead in Hospitality – Join Our Exclusive Email List - your backstage pass to the hospitality world.
In an uplifting 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.
Created 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.
Takeaways:
Links referenced in this episode:
Companies mentioned in this episode:
00:00 - None
00:00 - Intro to Episode 3
00:35 - Meet Kemi Akinola
00:50 - Be Enriched's Mission
02:29 - Emergency Food Distribution During Lockdown
06:49 - The Joy of Delivering Food
07:31 - Sourcing Food for the Community
09:22 - The Future: Mobile Greengrocer Bus
12:20 - Advice for Hospitality Workers
14:08 - Outro: Reflecting on the Impact
Timothy R. Andrews
Okay. Welcome to this, our third podcast Talking Hospitality I'm Timothy R. Andrews, and this is Sarah Kettel
Sarah Kettel
Hello.
Timothy R. Andrews
I'm a consultant and involved in a number of hospitality projects,
Sarah Kettel
and I'm a Chef working in restaurant management.
Timothy R. Andrews
In last week's episode, we talked about the future of hospitality.
Sarah Kettel
We had listeners from all over the world, including the UK, Poland, Holland, and the US.
Timothy R. Andrews
Thank you to everybody that listened and that shared our podcast.
Sarah Kettel
This is episode three where we're going to be talking about food charities and how they have addressed the food crisis that came along with the pandemic. This week, we are delighted to have Kemi Akinola, CEO of Be Enriched with us. Welcome, Kemi.
Timothy R. Andrews
Hello.
Sarah Kettel
Hello.
Timothy R. Andrews
How are you doing?
Kemi Akinola
I'm good. Thank you very much.
Timothy R. Andrews
Welcome to the show.
Kemi Akinola
Thank you.
Timothy R. Andrews
So who are Be Enriched?
Kemi Akinola
We're a charity set up in 2013 initially as a youth organization supporting young people involved in or at risk of being involved in the criminal justice system. What we have been doing up until recently is creating community meals where people come together who are at risk of poverty or social isolation.
We cook a lovely meal with the volunteers. Volunteers cook a meal, and very healthy one.
And then everybody sits down and eats it together and kind of making a lot of community, helping people to make connections and networks where otherwise they couldn't.
So obviously the worst part about the lockdown for me was having to tell all these people that struggle to make connections due to ill health or age or finances that they could no longer come together to eat. And that was very difficult for them as well.
A lot of them still continued to come to one of the churches that we were operating from on a weekly basis. Luckily, I had some amazing chefs who would also just give them food when they came to the door. So that was great.
Sarah Kettel
Kemi, you've not really had a break through lockdown at all, have you? There's been no furlough for you, no time off, no sitting watching Netflix. Tell us about what you've been doing.
Kemi Akinola
That's absolutely right, Sarah. And to be honest, I did that to myself because me and the team could have taken time off.
But as soon as we heard what was going on and we heard about, we had stories from people who were struggling. We knew that there was something that we could do. So we took it upon ourselves.
We took three days to think about it and then took it upon ourselves to reopen both the community projects that I run and a cafe that I run with Brixton People's Kitchen and use them as emergency food distribution. Centers. So I think overall we sent something like 5,000 emergency food parcels out across the boroughs of Wandsworth and Lambeth in three months.
Timothy R. Andrews
It's amazing.
Kemi Akinola
It's incredible.
Sarah Kettel
Those numbers are pretty amazing.
Timothy R. Andrews
What inspired you to make the changes to Be Enriched during lockdown?
Kemi Akinola
I felt a moral obligation to support people because I could. I wasn't ill. I have access to a lot of food, building spaces, the will and support of volunteers and other team members. Food has always been.
And lack of food has always been a great passion of mine. I campaign for everybody to have access to food at all times.
So I couldn't imagine not doing anything in a time when you would walk to the supermarket and there would be nothing on the shelves. So I think that's why I felt I had to do something.
Timothy R. Andrews
Delivering 5,000 packages of food is quite a task. How did you manage that?
Kemi Akinola
Lots and lots of coffee. We had. We had. We worked in one borough, we worked with the local council to source food, which was even in.
From warehouses and in bulk that was really difficult to get hold of.
So in one borough we worked with them to source the food and then in the other borough we just bought loads of food and using lots of surplus food there as well, and planning and organization. A million emails. Do you know? I don't. I'm not. I'm not really sure how we did it, but we just did.
Lots of volunteers with cars, lots of people doing walking deliveries, people on bicycles, on cargo bikes, quite a few Ubers as well, and a horse and cartoon.
Sarah Kettel
Tell us about the horse and cart.
Kemi Akinola
All the LOLs, Sarah. All the LOLs.
If there's anything about a pandemic that really, like, makes you see the funniest side or makes you a bit more playful with the very seriousness of the pandemic definitely was deliveries. We were up most days at work about 8 o'clock. Army of about 25 volunteers every day. So these are people who.
Some of them were furloughed, some of them just wanted to give back in some way.
Up at 8 and we'd do the last delivery at about 6pm I would say probably like three of the people there were being paid, everybody else was a volunteer. So that's like showing really incredible community spirit.
So in our three months we also did a TikTok, which you can see on our Facebook page, which is amazing, but it was something nice to. To take the. To, like break up the day. But one day a local man with his horse and cart offered to do some deliveries to some of the children.
So if you can imagine, a lot of these very young children had been locked up at home with their parents and maybe siblings and not allowed to go out. So delivering one of these emergency boxes to them on a horse and cart was just quite incredible.
Sarah Kettel
It's like something out of a movie.
Kemi Akinola
The kids came out screaming, the parents, a lot of them. It's very strange, I think, to fight to see a horse full stop, but a horse and cart in the middle of a housing estate.
So it really brought a lot of the parents out. You know, they got to stroke the horse, see a bit of nature. And we gave them their boxes and, you know, broke up a bit of the.
What was a really scary time.
Timothy R. Andrews
How did that make you feel when you saw the way people reacted?
Kemi Akinola
Something about traveling by horse and cart that just fills you with like this incredible sense of like, I don't know, it's not really adrenaline, but it's like a different mode of arrival when you kind of feel very regal arriving by horse. So I was already full of joy, to quote Marie Kondo. I was full of joy.
And then when the kids came out and they were really happy, like so happy, that's just the best feeling ever. I mean, I think we could have given them like, I was going to say a toilet roll, but you know, that was pretty scarce as well.
But we could have given them anything and they would have just been really happy to see the horse. That was really nice.
Timothy R. Andrews
Kemi, how do you source the food?
Kemi Akinola
Yes, our food comes to us from a variety of sources. We work with City Harvest soon, also the Felix Project that specialize in collecting and delivering surplus food from a variety of different sources.
We work with a couple of local wholesalers, specifically those that do cultural foods like mangoes, pineapples, yams, sweet potato, good sweet potato. We're about to set up a partnership with a local. Well, not local. The guy is from Jamaica. The farms he works with are in Jamaica, so it's that local.
And a couple of farmers in Nigeria as well. And then we've got also some.
Then we also just work with your general bog standard wholesalers because people like cornflakes, but only if it's Kellogg's and people will eat beans, but only if it's Heinz.
Even in a lockdown, we've had to really think like, just because people have not got enough money doesn't mean they shouldn't have the best quality of food.
Timothy R. Andrews
Did you have many hospitality people volunteer for you?
Kemi Akinola
We had a guy called Shiva who used to be a Thai chef, but Then moved into property consulting. We had a lady called Audrey who was front of house at one of the Marriott hotels.
And then we had this amazing superstar executive chef from the Marriott called Jamie Welsh who came and helped us out two days a week for most of the time. And he was just brilliant and we love him very much. Yeah.
Sarah Kettel
So Kemi, moving forward, I know that you have procured a bus. Can you tell us about the bus?
Kemi Akinola
Yes, I have. Two and a half years ago.
Sarah Kettel
And also, why did you ditch the horse and cartoon.
Kemi Akinola
Sarah? I love the horse and cart but you know, it's quite slow and you can't really carry that many delivery boxes in it. When it rains you'll get wet.
Horses poo. They poo on the street. You've got to clear that up.
Timothy R. Andrews
That's not to be sniffed at.
Kemi Akinola
Although it was fun. I would definitely travel by a horse. Again, not going to get me anywhere very fast.
But in answer to your earlier question, about two and a half years ago, the Wandsworth Food Partnership, which my.
Which be enriched convenes and a couple of the food banks and other food aid organizers with Feeding Britain, which is like this big organization that's trying to improve access to food across the whole of Britain, as the name suggests, concocted an idea that we would buy a double decker bus and convert it into a mobile greengrocer. But it has taken forever to get to the point where next week at some point we're going to pick up the keys.
We also, it was like, you know, we agreed the idea then we had to secure the funding. Loads of people left in this two year period. My project manager had a baby so she's on maternity leave.
Anyway, Covid happened as well, that very important thing.
And yeah, it's really just literally we were just about to get the show on the road and what it is is a greengrocer on the bottom floor so people can choose, you know, like a shop, what they would like. We're gonna have a little cooking area so our chef Carl can do some cooking demonstrations and we might be able to do some food out of a hatch.
And on the top level we've got a cafe and seating area. So eventually when we can all sit down next to each other, we can have like nice meals up there.
But for the minute we'll probably just use that for giving advice. And people need to use the Internet. They'll be able to sit up there and do a CV or something like that. So very limited capacity.
Anyway, it will be traveling from Enfield through to Wandsworth sometime next week. And Silver says the food bus on it, in case there's any doubt what it is.
Sarah Kettel
That's incredible. And where do you plan to drive the food bus to?
Kemi Akinola
Battersea, Tooting and Roehampton will almost take up all of the week as it is. Wow. So we're probably just going to keep it in Wandsworth for this year at least. It will be on our website, www.beenriched.org.
Sarah Kettel
Amazing. We'll look out for that.
Timothy R. Andrews
So, Kemi, what kind of advice might you give somebody who's either been working in hospitality or is afraid of where their career might go?
Kemi Akinola
I think that there are lots of opportunities for people to use their skills. Although I know a lot of restaurants were closing down, they are very slowly reopening. There are some places that have shut down.
But then I see a lot of opportunists who are using this as a. As a springboard to open up new food businesses. So I would say keep your eye out looking for that sort of job.
I mean, from my organization, for example, we are probably one of the few food charities and my social enterprise books and People's Kitchen that actually managed to stay open and fairly afloat the whole time. And we're actually looking for new people and also volunteer. Don't. Don't stop using your skills.
I know a lot of chefs, they love cooking and they just have to cook. So go find a community project and help them cook food.
I think that at the end of COVID those people who just have kept things on their CV are the people that will be the most employable in the future.
Sarah Kettel
That's great advice.
Kemi Akinola
Yeah.
Sarah Kettel
I think it's very easy to sit on your laurels and think, oh, it's.
Kemi Akinola
The end of the world.
Sarah Kettel
I'll just sit here and wait for something to happen. But the truth is, there are the opportunities out there.
Timothy R. Andrews
That's really good advice. Thank you. What an amazing job that you've done done.
I mean, it's incredible and it's hugely inspirational and we're really grateful that you're spending time talking to us today. It's really incredible.
Sarah Kettel
Yeah. What you've done is amazing.
Timothy R. Andrews
Thank you, Kemi.
Kemi Akinola
Oh, pleasure. Thank you for listening.
Timothy R. Andrews
Let us know your thoughts and comments on today's topic.
Sarah Kettel
We look forward to you joining us in the next episode of Talking Hospitality. Available on itunes, Soundcloud, Google Play and YouTube.
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.
