UCOL and Kai Hub promote food venture

Joe Thompson of Kai Hub with some of the 'rescued' apples that will feature in the Autumn Food Festival. Photo / Paul Brooks

This Saturday, UCOL and Kai Hub are collaborating to bring you the Autumn Food Festival.

Kai Hub is a local food rescue collective, based in the Millenium Building on Whanganui City College grounds in St Hill St, "rescuing" food from supermarkets, agriculture and more. The food is used to produce cheap, nutritious meals for people in the community.

Gina Guigou, senior lecturer in catering and hospitality at UCOL, says the festival will include some community cooking workshops.

"They are 45-minute workshops," she says. "You work in a group to experience different things."

The workshops are Autumn Baking, Preserving 101, Harvest Frittata (eggs) and One Pot Meal.

"We are going to use apples, because there are lots of those around at the moment, and we've got different people from the community coming in and taking the classes."

Gina says they will be using one of last year's UCOL baking students who has now gone on to do Level 4 Cookery.

"She will do the baking session, which is a nice progression for her ... and passing on her skills and knowledge to others."

All the ingredients will be food that Kai Hub has rescued.

Gina says the workshops are free but people will need to register through the Kai Hub Facebook page.

"I believe in what they are doing: I hate seeing food wasted. I believe we need to use the UCOL facilities in the community to encourage people on to the campus and have a look at what we're doing."

The cooking workshops will be held in the UCOL catering kitchens which are accessed through the atrium in Rutland St. Full directions will be given on registration. The workshops are limited to small groups.

"You're cooking as a group so you're interacting with others, sharing ideas, learning, gaining confidence. It's to spread the joy of cooking," says Gina.

Joe Thompson is part of Kai Hub and also Easy Earth, a service that collects food waste previously intended for landfill. They convert it into compost.

"We want [Kai Hub] to be a connecting place around food, not just for foodies and not just for those desperate for food, but all in between. The two main threads of what we are doing are reducing food insecurity and reducing food waste.

"It's a crazy situation where we have a society that wastes up to a third of the food we produce, at the same time as we have people struggling with food insecurity.

"In terms of food security, that's part of the cooking [at the festival]. We want to give people a chance to connect with each other and learn from each other."

The following classes will be running throughout the day at the Autumn Food Festival:
Autumn Baking, Preserving 101, 'You're an egg': Harvest Frittata, One Pot Meal.
Class times: 10-11am, 11.45am-12.45pm, 1.15-2.15pm.

Register on the Kai Hub Facebook page.