Teaching Valuable Vegan Culinary Skills: Made In Hackney Community Cookery School, Part 1 of 2

Sarah Bentley (vegan), the founder of Made In Hackney, established the London, UK-based community cookery school in 2012 to promote vegan eating. Made In Hackney has touched the lives of 400,000 people worldwide while serving more than 230,000 animal-product-free meals since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Amidst the cold winter months of 2023, Supreme Master Ching Hai (vegan) contributed £1,600 plus £1,400 afterwards, to Made In Hackney, “with love and appreciation to all staff for your noble work,” to support its participation in the Warm Spaces project that offers free, safe places for vulnerable members of the British public to warm up in. “Made in Hackney, we’re a community cookery school building a global plant-based movement. And we work on building community, tackling health inequalities, and tackling the climate crisis by teaching people to grow, cook, and eat more plants. Because by doing that, it’s a beautiful way of tackling all those really big issues. So, that’s our mission.”

Global Plant Kitchens, a free program developed by Made In Hackney, is designed to help create vegan community cookery schools worldwide. “And then we’ve got people from 27 countries all around the world signed up to that course, which is really exciting.” “I think we’re one of the most diverse vegan cooking schools, probably in the world, in terms of all the different types of culinary cuisines that we offer, but in a vegan format.” “So, I think this very inclusive approach, non-judgmental approach is really important and has been the key to spreading more of the environmental and nutritional benefits of the plant-based diet. I can’t remember the exact stats, but it’s something like 92% of our participants are all inspired to eat more fruit and veg after coming to our classes. And 71% eat less meat.”