It was uplifting and great way to spend time with colleagues doing something great for the community and sharing a laugh.
A fun way to give back to the community with my team!
Great initiative and team bonding morning!
Very enjoyable team building way to give back to the community.
Great opportunity to have fun with work colleagues whilst supporting the community.
Informative, fun and rewarding.
Lovely to see sustainability is incorporated through the whole program and to see it in practice.
Corporate Team Building Program (Pilot)
In 2023, with the assistance of a Circular Economy Grant through the City of Greater Bendigo, we developed a (pilot) corporate cooking program which assisted us to convert rescued food, that is not able to be used immediately for food relief, into frozen meals.
The corporate cooking program is based on our existing Cooking for Change! youth program (which started in a similar manner in 2020).
Our key impacts of our 2023 pilot:
- 17 cooking sessions conducted
- 2,378 frozen meals for food relief created
- 740kgs of food diverted from waste
What’s involved?
Working alongside an experienced cook, your team will cook around 150 nutritious meals, using rescued food that would otherwise go to waste. These meals will be individually packaged and frozen before being distributed across Central Victoria to those in need, as part of our food relief program.
The session runs for approximately 4 hours. This includes full instruction and support, as well as morning tea with (rescued) snacks while we provide an overview of our work.
It’s a great team building session and we’ve had fabulous feedback so far.
Participation
Each session accommodates 8-10 participants. You are not obliged to fill a session with your team; we can include volunteers, or team up with another organisation.
During the 2023 pilot program, we were able to offer this program Thursday mornings from 8:45am-1pm in Flora Hill (Bendigo).
Cost
The session costs $900. The charge helps us to cover the costs of the day including chef’s wages, kitchen hire, costs of containers and lids and some small top-up food purchases.
Details
All participants will be required to comply with food safety guidelines, including completing a 30 minute online food safety course ‘Do Food Safely’ in advance.
Hygiene compliance includes:
- wearing a hair net and apron (provided)
- appropriate (sturdy/closed toe) footwear (eg: no running shoes)
- no nail polish (gloves are optional)
- no jewellery or piercings (must be taped if cannot be removed)
Expression of interest
We are keen to hold more corporate cooking sessions in 2024. To register your interest with us, please complete our expression of interest form.
Going Forward
Once we have established our corporate Cooking for Change program, we are looking to develop other corporate volunteering activities in our warehouse or at Golden Gums farm; something to look forward to!
Please let us know if this is something your organisation would be interested in.
If you have staff who would like to sign up as a Bendigo Foodshare volunteer, including volunteering in the corporate kitchen, send them this link.
