Like much of Wales the county of Carmarthenshire has a sometimes-complex relationship with its food. Though much of its sprawling rural landscape is home to roaming livestock, dairies and fields of vegetables and grains, only miles away sit post-industrial towns grappling with deprivation, food-related disease and chronic levels of food insecurity.
In recent years a plethora of initiatives have emerged in the region to try and regenerate this “Garden of Wales” – from pilot projects to get homegrown veg on school menus to community food share schemes and even the creation of a regional food strategy – but there remains plenty more to be done.
Which is why it’s here that the passionate chefs and foodies that make up new charity Cegin y Bobl (The People’s Kitchen) have already begun to lay the foundations of an ambitious plan to reignite education, excitement and engagement around food – both in Carmarthenshire and across the rest of Wales.
Their journey to this point hasn’t exactly been linear. At first the charity’s founder Simon Wright, an award-winning restaurateur and broadcaster, had no such grandiose ambitions in mind. In 2022, working with further education college Coleg Sir Gar, Wright had devised a short-term plan to address a shortage of kitchen skills in Wales’ hospitality sector catalysed by the pandemic. The intensive introductory course saw renowned chefs teach essential culinary skills over a five-week period, setting participants up with the foundations for a career in food and drink.
But it quickly became clear that the impact of this type of food education could benefit a far wider proportion of the local population, says Jen Goss, one of the chefs brought on board by Wright to deliver the Cook24 curriculum. “We saw there were all sorts of people that really needed the work we were doing. People are struggling with their health and food-related conditions like obesity and diabetes. We’ve lost the way as a society in knowing how to cook and where our food comes from.”
So, to expand its reach, in October 2023, buoyed by a cash injection from the Shared Prosperity Fund made available as part of the UK government’s Levelling Up Agenda, the Cook24 team began venturing into schools, community centres and food banks.
One of the first to extend an invite was Karen Towns, headteacher at Llandeilo Primary, who’d spotted the team’s work being discussed on social media. Towns had seen first-hand the impact of UPF-packed lunchboxes on her pupils’ behaviour and had already begun making changes around nutrition, with vegetables grown on the school site and “old fashioned cookery lessons” on how to turn to produce into simple healthy meals.
But when the Cook24 chefs showed up to deliver a workshop with sharp knives and an infectious enthusiasm for local vegetables, the students were hooked. They willingly tucked into new dishes like lentil Bolognese, says Towns, and sat rapt as the chefs explained where produce came from, its story, seasonality and heritage. “For a couple of our Year 6 boys who’ve been quite disengaged from the whole educational process over the years, they now have an aspiration to be a chef when they get older,” she says. “They’re motivated to do maths and literacy in order to be a chef. That wasn’t something I was expecting to come out of it.”
It’s a long way from your average Home Economics lesson, points out Goss, of the team’s approach. “I’m a firm believer in sharp knives and hot objects and teaching people how to operate around them whatever their age or whatever level of experience they have. Kids are no different from anyone else – they’ll listen and learn if you give them a bit of respect.
“You’ve got children from all walks of life with all different levels of home education,” she adds. “Some have had mental health issues. Some haven’t found their place in school and feel alienated. We find that often those kids who are most marginalized in schools are most likely to feel incredibly safe and accepted and really, really comfortable in a kitchen. It’s a special place for them. They feel like they belong all of a sudden.”
From the outset, it was agreed that each workshop or class would be a judgement and food snobbery-free zone, adds food writer Carwyn Graves, who’s been heavily involved with the charity from the start. “Food shaming is a huge problem,” he says. “We’re not going there at all. We ask the kids, what’s your experience of food? What does food mean for you? What do you like? Great. Let’s park that. Now, we’re chefs, we’re food producers etc and we have an experience of food that’s over here, it’s in a different place, and this is what it is, and we love it, and we want to share it with you.”
Hundreds of schoolkids have benefited so far. In just one year after securing SPF funds, Cook24 was able to deliver its workshops to 36 per cent of primary and 42 per cent of secondary schools across Carmarthenshire. And it’s done much more besides.
The team also partnered with Llanelli Food Bank to deliver courses and workshops on affordable home-cooking for its users, and trained up teachers, community leaders and parents to help forge a sense of food leadership in the county. They ran outdoor cooking sessions, hosted cook-a-longs, post-natal nutrition classes and family fun days. From October 2023 to December 2024, more than 1500 people benefited from the group’s community work.
But as December and the end of its current funding approached, Cook24’s organisers were faced with a bit of a dilemma. Could they take what they’d learned in the previous two years and scale up the model into its next iteration? “The message was coming through that you can’t just let this end,” says Graves. “You’ve got to carry this on. It was then about ‘could we really prove the concept, not just in one town or a local neighbourhood, which is massively significant, but what are the learnings when it comes to how you do this at the level that can really influence and inform policy?’”
After plenty of soul-searching they decided they could. Which is why the newly formed Cegin y Bobl, launched in October, is taking the same vision as Cook24 and rolling it out on a grander scale by utilising the hospitality expertise that exists all across Wales. “We have to be sharper; we have to use all the lessons that we’ve learned and ensue it’s very time and cost efficient as everything we do is based on face-to-face interactions,” adds Graves.
The long-term strategy includes wielding food as a cross-curriculum tool within Wales’ schools as a way to break down subject barriers and bring food to the fore, be it science, geography or maths. They also want to work collaboratively with teachers and catering staff to overhaul school meals.
It’s ambitious, yes. But given what Cegin y Bobl, and its earlier iterations, have achieved in less than three years in their picturesque testing ground of Carmarthenshire, it’s a plan that just might have what it takes to start healing Wales’ complicated relationship with its food.
To learn more, you can visit Cegin y Bobl here.
Gwych, prosiect bwyd mawr i Gymru.
This is such an encouraging story! All good wishes to them.
Susan Harris