Bay’s Big Cook saves waste to feed hundreds

Pupils at Bay Leadership Academy once again demonstrated their practical skills and community spirit by organising a ‘Big Cook’ to support a local food waste project.

Volunteers at the school organised a colossal cooking event in collaboration with Eggcup, putting good use to surplus food going to waste to feed vulnerable members of their community.

Under the guidance of staff, the school has been hosting regular cooking events since 2019. The culinary events, which now take place six times a year, started life as small, staff-only cooking sessions and have evolved into large-scale pupil-led initiatives.

Pupils not only gain invaluable cooking skills, the experiences also offer the young chefs an opportunity to help others and give back to their community.

In their ‘Big Cook’ in May, pupils celebrated the King’s Coronation by preparing Royal Quiches, the official food of the event, which was the pupils’ first foray into making pastry. Using the school’s catering facilities, pupils spent the day cooking, learning practical skills and exploring new ingredients. By the end of giant ‘cookathon’, pupils had made more than 160 vegetarian and vegan quiches, which were collected by Eggcup and distributed to the nearby Stanleys Community Centre in Morecambe and Eggcup’s Lancaster Hub, ready for recipients to enjoy as they celebrated the Coronation.