Last night I was delighted to host a table at the Beyond Food Foundation‘s 10th Anniversary Dinner held at the Brigade Bar and Kitchen.

Simon Boyle founded the Beyond Food Foundation 10 years ago helping vulnerable adults to be trained up so they can retrain for a career in hospitality. In the photo collage above, the photo bottom left shows Simon with one of his apprentices Ben. Ben shared his story from being an army medic in Afghanistan and his journey of how he ended up being trained by Simon and his team at The Brigade Bar and Kitchen for a career in hospitality. Inspiring a future beyond homelessness encompasses everything that the Beyond Food Foundation does.

Those of you that are regular readers of my blog will know that I fully support Simon and the work he does and have helped him in any way I can from volunteering to distribute meals at the start of the pandemic through to training his new apprentices to build up their confidence and IT skills as they re-enter the world of employment.

To celebrate the 10th anniversary Simon held a ‘Feast with Purpose’ event where his apprentices had the opportunity to cook alongside esteemed Chef Brian Turner. I booked a table and brought along some of my hospitality colleagues and friends to celebrate and support this milestone.

It was also a chance to celebrate the achievements of my colleagues too. Robert Richardson, the recently appointed CEO for the Institute of Hospitality was also celebrating his birthday and there were a few surprises for him. Sam Coulstock has recently been appointed to the Institute of Hospitality as their Head of Professional Development. Multi award winning Neel Radia for all the good work he has done whilst at the NACC, King of the hospitality podcasts Phil Street and of course Paul Evans previous Chair for the Institute of Hospitality London. One thing that unites all of us, other than having the pleasure of working with all of them, is that we are all members of the Institute of Hospitality – the world’s leading body for hospitality professionals. They have recently launched their diversity pin which aims to raise funds to help develop the industry’s future hospitality talent whose financial circumstances stop them from joining the Institute and accessing resources that will benefit their future careers.

This is what I love about our industry it is so supportive and inclusive. So if you have purchased your Diversity Shield take a photo of yourself proudly wearing it and post it on your social media with the hashtags #Imin #Hospitalityfamily